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Dayton RTA, Dayton, OH, always tries to provide the best possible transit service. As hard as we try, as a public agency we know we are going to receive comments and complaints about an RTA experience at one time or another.
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I recently came across a solution specifically related to preventing the parking brake from freezing — a device anyone can make in the garage.
Last year it became clear that the government would issue a seatbelt mandate for new motorcoaches. This would not come as a complete surprise to the industry given recent high profile fatal accidents involving ejections, and especially the motorcoach-specific crash testing NHTSA has conducted on the effectiveness of passenger restraints.
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Two drivers from Peter Pan Bus Lines, Springfield, MA, Edward C. Hope and Everett L. Anderson representing Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1512, are the 2009 inductees into the BUSRide Driver Hall of Fame presented by 5Star Products.
In an industry where safety compliance and customer service make or break reputations, bus professionals need to know their interests are in good hands out on the road.
It is essentially unreasonable in this day and age to think an affluent demographic will choose to ride a coach on trips more than a few hundred miles.
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One stormy day in June in Pinellas County, FL, PSTA bus driver Don Dillon drove by a large palm tree burning after a lightning strike next to a home and immediately pulled over to report the fire to his dispatch. He then ran and knocked on the door, hopped the fence and banged on the back windows.
For about a week I had been hearing a high-pitched whistling noise coming from an S-60 engine. I inspected it and drove it personally, but was still unable to locate the source. With a little more probing, I eventually diagnosed the disturbing noise as coming from the air intake system on the engine.
If an operator were asked to list the most important safety factors in a bus and motorcoach operation, what comes to mind as the five most important points?
Chances are slim to none that dispatch made that list. Many passenger transportation companies do not realize the dispatcher often is the forgotten ingredient in the safety soup.
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The emission standards that went into effect in 2007 have created further issues in an industry that has one of the lowest pollution emissions per passenger in the entire transportation industry. Nonetheless they are here to stay.
