New School Buses Hitting the Road in Zhejiang

Residents of East China's Zhejiang Province are seeing new kinds of school buses on their roads. Manufactured to American standards, these buses are expected to provide more safety and convenience for local students.

Our reporter Liu Xiangwei has more.

It's half past four p.m. The students from Yucai Primary School have just finished classes and are listening to the roll call on their school bus. They answer as their names are called out while they fasten their safety belts.

Mr. Bai takes care of about 50 children on their way home on the bus everyday.

"I'm here to make sure everybody is safe while they get on and off the bus, and to check whether anybody is absent. I also introduce safety tips and try to keep things orderly."

Nearly 80 school buses with the new design have been operating since earlier this month, in Deqing County, in East China's Zhejiang Province. The front of the bright-yellow-colored, long-nosed vehicles resembles a truck while the rear resembles a bus.

Approximately 5,000 pupils throughout the county, under 12 years old, are taking the buses to and from school. It seems as though it's been well accepted by the young passengers.

"I like it. It looks like a wrecking car."

"It's like one of the transformers in the movie."

Li Aiping, deputy manager of the local traffic service company, says this design is not only to improve the image of the buses, but also to guarantee the students' safety.

"The truck head is longer, which means the driver sits further back in the cabin. If an accident occurs, this serves as a buffer. The engine is set inside the head, which is 1.4 meters long. Thus even if the engine ignites spontaneously it won't hurt the passengers."

All the 54 seats of the school bus are designed to suit the heights of students, so adults can't hitch an illicit ride and to make its service life last as long as possible.

All the windows are sealed up so students can't fall out, while a backup exit in the rear functions as an emergency exit.
Mr. Feng drives one of the schools buses. He says it's impossible to overstate the importance of safety.

"It requires at least three years' driving experience before one can operate a school bus, but for ordinary buses the requirement is only a driver's license."

In addition to this, an external office has been set up to monitor the real-time operation of the buses using GPS and monitors, so that rescue efforts could be organized immediately if an accident occurred. If speed limits are exceeded or the bus is overloaded, an alarm will be sounded.

However, school buses are not as popular in China as they are in some overseas countries. According to Luo Yongchang, an official with the local Education Bureau, to run school buses more safely, more improvements to traffic regulations are required.

"The school bus industry is still growing. There are no traffic regulations specifically relating to school buses. That's why we face a lot of difficulties and risks in taking students to and from school by bus. At present what we mainly do is to persuade drivers on the street to make way for school buses."

Designed and manufactured in central China's Henan Province, the school buses cost up 20 million yuan, or three million US dollars of the local financial budget. It only costs 200 yuan, or 30 US dollars for each student to use the service for six months. Moreover, school bus stations are usually located within three minutes walk at most, from children's homes.

For CRI, this is Liu Xiangwei.