Parents and school authorities are increasingly more concerned about their children in transport. Whether is is traveling to and from home to school, or on frequent school trips to sporting or educational visits.
How schools choose the transportation differs from country to country and from school to school. Some large schools operate their own fleet of vehicles but most commonly they charter a group transportation company to ferry the young passengers around.
There is a duty of care regarding the responsibility for the parents, schools and transportation companies about the movement of the children from A to B. The difficulty arrives when the duty crosses over from one area to another and the question is asked whose responsibility it is?
In one respect having the appropriate school vehicles for transporting children in safety helps to dissipate the risk, and in America they have specially designed vehicles to transport children.
American School Transport
American school buses don’t always look alike, apart from their distinctive bright yellow color. And while there are seven different types of buses the vehicles all have to conform to federal motor vehicle safety standards with special regard to school buses.
Not many countries follow this strict regulation of vehicles and therefore other safety measures have to be applied. School Travel Manager has a comprehensive system that allows parents, schools and transport companies real time information about the children when they are in transport.
Asian School Transport
Most of the time in Asia just standard modes of transport are used to ferry all types of passengers including schoolchildren. This includes coaches, vans, and buses, and although most of these vehicles are maintained to fairly high standards by the transport management companies they are not purpose built vehicles designed for schoolchildren to travel.
In 2016 there was well publicised CCTV footage of young children falling out of school vans in Thailand. Whilst the vehicle was mechanically sound and roadworthy it did not have the correct safety features on the door locks.
Many attitudes in the poorer parts of Asia is that these vans are better than driving children to school on the back of a motorcycle without a helmet. Obviously this is true but it is hardly a sound argument, but because of circumstances it is true.
Thailand School Buses
The basic school buses in Thailand are minivans (rot rong-rian) and are typically operated by small operators and not large group transportation companies. Therefore the school is at risk that the proper safety precautions are not being followed.
More and more often in Thailand both schools and parents wish to have a higher standard of safety for the children in their care whilst they are in transit. And some are demanding that bus operators offer a guaranteed level of protection before they are issued with lucrative charter contracts.
Those operators that offer monitoring and tracking systems are now reaping the rewards of moving with the times. And relatively low cost systems will repay their initial cost many times with extra transport contracts.
If you wish to find out more about the School Travel Manager system then contact us to speak to one of their friendly advisors.