Environmental consciousness has a definite effect on corporate policy. Corporate social responsibility programs are transforming forward-looking companies like FirstGroup America, challenging leadership to take a hard look at fuel choices, driving techniques and improved vehicle technology.
I do not need a crystal ball to tell me what comes to mind for most bus company owners when they hear the word compliance. I already know they would say DOT regulations.
The many innovations at the UITP conference and exhibition in June in Vienna, Austria, may have overshadowed the significance of the latest generation of fuel cell bus from Mercedes-Benz.
The advertising industry has its ideas about transit media products, and they are none too rosy according to a new study from the Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP), Practical measures to increase transit advertising revenues. The belief by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) that motivated this study is public transit agencies could be—and needs to be—benefiting more from their advertising assets.
In unyielding market conditions, bus and motorcoach operators are casting a wide net in an effort to strengthen performance and improve the bottom line. One area executives can make improvements is in commercial insurance programs.
Earlier this year Guide Dogs for the Blind, Concord, CA, took its puppies on its annual extracurricular training mission to The County Connection, for further training and practice on the intricacies of exiting transit buses, how to enter and exit using ramps and lifts. As Guide Dogs for the Blind they will learn to assist their partner, board the bus and take a seat while ignoring any distractions from other passengers or vehicle sounds. County Connection community relations director Marie Knutson says the dogs and trainers are one her favorite groups that visit the transit agency.
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.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) uses the word reincarnated to describe out of service operators who have returned in no better shape than when they left to do business under a new identity.
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.
Sofia is a city of around 1.2 million people, situated towards the western end of a country of 7.4 million. Bulgaria became part of the Soviet Bloc in 1946 until it gained independence in 1991. The country and its neighbor Romania were the last two countries to join the European Union in January 2007.