Reduction of capacity and projected costs associated with seat belt installation on school buses

This study examines the potential effects the installation of seat belts on school buses would have on the fleet capacity in Alabama and the resulting cost implications. The study also documents the myriad research studies and professional opinions offered on the potential safety effects of equipping school buses with safety restraints/seat belts. Four seat configurations for the school buses were analyzed. The first configuration represents the most common current bus seating configuration without seat belts, 3 seats on each side of the aisle and 12 rows (3/3-12). The physical space required for seat belt hardware may result in a loss of a row of seats and may reduce the number of students seated per row. Thus, three more configurations were studied: loss of a row of seats (3/3-11), loss of one seat per row (3/2-12), and loss of both a row of seats and a seat per row (3/2-11). The capacity for each configuration for each bus using current pupil loads was determined. The costs associated with installation of seat belts, and purchase and operation of new buses were obtained. Should school bus seat belts become mandatory in Alabama, the results obtained in this study can be used by any school system to determine the optimum configuration for their pupils, which will identify the number of additional buses that must be purchased by the school system. This study found that many of the buses that would become overloaded due to seat belt installation and the resultant loss of seating will be carrying only a few excess pupils. Transportation supervisors may be able to handle such overloads by transferring these pupils to other buses or by adjusting their bus routes to minimize purchase of new buses. Additional suggestions for handling bus overloads were offered in the body of this report.