We know that the International Terrorists like the idea of attacking buses as we watch every week another attack in Israel. There have many ideas on how buses like Greyhound might protect the drivers through use of a high-tech ultra-strength plastic shields or enclosed see-through boxes. Lately Canada and the FBI in United States have been looking at tour buses traveling into the country, looking into the riders and drivers. I once had a call from a Tour Bus Operator in Ontario Canada on his way to Florida Coast with Tourists, he was going to stop in Columbus GA or Across the river in Phoenix City, Alabama for the night and was needing a Bus Wash. (My company washes Buses; http://www.BusWashGuys.com ).
Think about this they found a make shift training facility for terrorism up the road about 45 miles. The bus again was to be driven from Canada to AL, with no scheduled stops. With large school districts sub contracting the school buses in this country and out sourcing though companies like Laidlaw, a Canadian Company along with the Greyhound Company owned by a Canadian holding company we need to be sure that our transportation system, which utilizes buses to deliver people to their desired destinations is watched closely. These buses travel along with private automobiles and share the roads, highway, freeways and toll ways. Having a strong bus sector for travel helps in that people can travel for less by bus and they have more options of where the buses can go. Some of these Greyhound buses go 500,000 miles between oil changes, the motors are never turned off, this is the level of efficiency and is rarely matched in public transportation systems.
Buses are an integral part of our Flow of Transportation. Without buses schools would have a trouble educating our kids. In the future we will have more schools using the Internet for the hard to get to rural areas. One option is to schedule schools on staggered schedules based on where you live. So if you live on the East side of town you might go to school on Mondays and Wednesdays only. This would allow for areas to spend less on schools and get more work done and lower class size without bankrupting states, it would also alleviate the problems of massive amounts of buses to deliver kids to somewhere else to be taught, here are some thoughts on how we might assist schools without disrupting peak flows in the transportation departments of the educational facilities. If the weather is stormy it is unacceptable to put kids in a bus and risk driving them to school through rural areas with unsafe roads for the conditions.
Eventually those areas with over stressed budgets can look into the issues of large bus contracts or large bus fleets to move kids to schools which are not ready to accept such large temporary inflows of kids which might only last for a few years and then the school is under-utilized, thus might need to close and bus those kids even further in the future. We need to protect our buses from International Terrorist without causing a pandemic of fear which decreases rider-ship and destroys the economies of scale needed for a successful transportation system; whether it is taking people across town, across country or simply to school. Think about it.
"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/