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Alex Roman
Executive Editor
Safety Corner helps you stay informed on the latest in public transit and motorcoach safety with expert insights, industry updates, and best practices. From safety regulations and accident prevention to emerging technologies and passenger security, we cover everything to keep travelers, operators, and policymakers up to date.
There should come a time during each new student’s training bus instruction, when instructor-led skill development turns to student demonstration and “Show Time” begins. It is during this time the student must perform for the instructor. I call this a “Show Me” day.
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All too often what was taught during the initial training period can get diluted by what other operators may be saying or doing. Well-meaning veterans sometimes offer advice in an effort to “help” new operators that might be inconsistent with what was just taught to them on the training bus. Would you even recognize your past students by their driving performance? Do they resemble the student that you personally qualified into passenger service?
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Going hand in hand with a standardized curriculum should be a standardized way of documenting student performance. When putting pen to paper, be sure an instructor’s documentation can be clearly understood by others who may need to refer back to it at a future date. Proper documentation is critical in the case of a student operator who may attempt to dispute a dismissal and may want to protest and pursue some type of legal options to challenge an instructor’s final evaluation.
Read More →The "Training Bus Instructor" (TBI) spends hours diligently working with a new hire candidate to provide basic skills training. Through this process, the required skills and knowledge successfully transfers to the student operator and they are released to a "Route Familiarization Operator" (RFO) that will help them learn the routes.
Read More →APTA pegs annual bus ridership in the U.S. and Canada at around 5.4 billion. It goes without saying that transit agencies strive to keep passengers safe and secure, but with large fleets to manage and millions of annual riders things can and do go wrong. That’s why onboard video surveillance is so essential.
Read More →Among the most difficult tasks for a new student bus operator to perform on the training bus is a “right turn into a bus stop.” On a scale of one to five, with five being most difficult, I rank it a five. Right turns, in general, rank at the top of the list, but having to successfully enter a bus stop “immediately” after a right turn comes as a result of several instructional steps — demonstrated properly by the trainer.
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