Technology stands at the ready to help manage these pedestrian groups. Many state guidelines, in fact, encourage school districts to promote walking school bus programs, which could prove to be a better solution than an increase in parents driving their children. Walking school buses and related bike to school programs also promote physical fitness and reduced air pollution.Īmid the age of COVID-19, these programs provide an option to reduce school bus passenger capacity due to social distancing guidelines, which are resulting in some school districts lengthening the walking distance to school. However, not all students are eligible for school bus ridership, for example, based upon the close proximity of where they live to their neighborhood school.

Meanwhile, during that same time period, 61 school-aged children who were school bus passengers were killed after being an occupant of a school transportation vehicle. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found in its school bus crash-related data from 2008 to 2017 that 97 school-aged child pedestrians were killed during school commute times, with 49 percent of those between the ages of 5 and 10. Some in the industry view it as competition, as any mode of travel not performed in a yellow school bus is considered not as safe.

As technology continues to evolve, a new mobile app developed by the City of Milton in Georgia aims to reconstruct the ways children hop on the walking school bus, a popular organized group that uses parents or other staff volunteers to escort children to school along approved paths.Īn element of the Safe Routes to School program, the walking school bus is no stranger to the student transportation industry.

Walkign school bus app snap