My kid’s school bus was almost an hour late this morning. It’s been about that late all week. He’s also been coming home very late as well, sometimes around 5:30 even though school let out about two hours earlier, and I know it’s not because of any after-school programs, because my kid’s whole modus operandi when it comes to school seems to be spending the minimum amount of time there. The reason is that there happens to be a pretty severe bus driver shortage where I live, though it’s not just in my area; there’s a shortage of school bus drivers nationwide. There’s a lot of reasons for this, like the absurdly low pay school bus drivers tend to get, and there really aren’t clear solutions just yet. Which is why I started thinking about this: Maybe school buses would be an ideal platform for automated driving?
[Editor’s Note: This is a reminder that Jason Torchinsky is an expert on the social elements of self-driving cars, having written the critically acclaimed book Robot Take The Wheel. -DT]
Now, of course I realize that we still haven’t fully developed self-driving cars; in fact, I think we’re a pretty long way from fully developing them, and I think that the semi-automated systems (SAE Level 2, where a human must be monitoring and ready to take over at any moment) that have been deployed onto public roads so far are deeply and inherently flawed. The more fully automated cars (Level 4, fully automated within a specific area) that are currently being tested have had plenty of their own issues, too. So why the hell am I even considering the use of autonomy for the vehicles that we entrust our precious offspring to?
The Bad Reason
Well, there are really two reasons, one admittedly terrible, and one that’s not so bad. Let’s get the terrible one out of the way first; it’s worth considering because, come on, it’s not like we’ve always had such great school bus solutions as it is, anyway. Look, most school buses don’t even have seatbelts. The drivers are woefully underpaid and overworked, and, get this, I grew up in an era when school buses were driven by high school students who could drive a bus instead of taking a couple classes!
That’s right, in North Carolina in the 1980s, until it was banned in 1988, 16- and 17-year old kids with maybe a number of months of driving experience under their belts were asked to drive us kids to and from school. I saw so many mailboxes decapitated by these barely-experienced burnout teens, and more than one flipped bus. They weren’t particularly safe, but, really, how much of a shock could that be if you stick a kid with six months’ of wheel time in their dad’s Chevy Citation and then plunk them down into a huge, top-heavy school bus? Of course it’s going to be a mess.
But this was the ’80s. People didn’t really start to love or give a shit about their kids’ well-being until well into the 1990s. So, I guess my point here is that trying out automated school buses shouldn’t be so alarming, because we have a rich and robust history of just kinda winging it when it comes to busing kids to and from school, and, while it wasn’t always perfect, it generally turned out fine. I’m alive, right? I mean if you call this living.
Okay, I told you the first one wasn’t really a great argument, but I had to get it out there, just to set that bar nice and low. I think whatever happens, it can’t be worse than letting 16-year olds drive the buses.
The Good Reasons: Regular, Predictable Routes
My real argument is that, among all of the possible contexts and use cases for automated driving, school bus routes may be one of the most ideal. I mean ideal for a very controlled Level 4-type of setup. Level 4 is full automation, no human driver needed, but only in a specific area. School buses are even one step better, because not only are they restricted to a given area, they follow the exact same route, every single day.
This is a huge deal for helping out with automation: you could pre-map and plan that route down to the inch if you wanted to, and the computers driving that bus would be programmed to follow that one route, and that’s it. Of course there would still be the need for sensors and cameras and all the associated AI that deals with other cars and obstacles and humans and all of that object avoidance, but knowing the exact situation, geography, and context for the drive is a massive help.
The Good Reasons: Low Speed
There’s also temporal regularity as well, in addition to geographic: School buses follow the same routes, at the same times of day, every day. All systems could be optimized for traffic and light conditions for each leg of the route, and adjust for changes in lighting throughout the year. Add to all of this the fact that school bus routes tend to be primarily low-speed driving, which adds an extra buffer of safety to the whole process. Sure, there are bus routes that require some highway stretches, but generally it’s pretty slow.
The average speed of a school bus on a route is 23 mph, with a minimum average of 13 mph, and the maximum average of 54 mph. School buses keep it slow, and for AVs at this moment in time, that’s ideal and gives a significant margin of safety.
The Good Reasons: Promo for AV Companies, Free For Schools
Companies like Cruise are already operating Level 4 rideshare cars in cities like San Francisco and Phoenix; what is demanded of an automated school bus should be an order of magnitude simpler than what their cars are already doing in San Francisco, where they operate at night and anywhere in a large, crowded, chaotic urban area. This is do-able, now. And, also importantly, I think companies like Cruise should be the ones doing it, and I think they should do it for free. At least at first.
There’s a lot of good testing and R&D that an AV company can accomplish by operating a fleet of AV buses for a school system. Companies like Cruise or Waymo could learn a lot, and it would offer them some fantastic PR and marketing opportunities. Think of the visibility of a Cruise or Waymo-branded school bus! Think of all the good press that would come from everyone knowing that, say, Waymo has solved North Carolina’s bus driver shortage with their miraculous technology! That’s gold right there.
Safety Challenges
Now, there are some specific challenges very specific to the job of a school bus. The biggest is that the moment any kid gets even remotely hurt by one of these, it’s all over. I know it probably shouldn’t need saying, but the safety of the kids is the most important part of this. And kids walk in front of and all around school buses; that’s just how it works. So there would need to be pretty stringent safeguards; if the bus door is open or the illuminated STOP sign is deployed, for example, there should be a mechanical switch that cuts power to the motors.
That way, if the bus stops and opens the door to let kids off and on, it physically cannot move, even if the sensors or computer systems make a mistake. The door-open-entry-exit time is the most dangerous phase of a school bus route, so that needs a very strong safeguard.
Dealing With The Kids, Maybe With Wasps
There would also need to be live monitoring of the buses on their routes, with feeds from external cameras to act as a failsafe for the bus’ own systems (there would be the means for an emergency shutdown, too) and internal cameras, because part of what a bus driver does is maintain order on the bus.
I think it’s possible to have a bus with no adult on it if the inside of the bus is monitored well. It may not be enough, of course, as it’s possible shit can really go sideways in there, but even in that case, a human bus driver is often also unable to do anything because they’re, you know, driving the bus, and can’t just get up and break up fights or whatever.
Loudspeakers could be on the bus so monitoring agents can inform students of things or let the jerky kids know that they’ve been caught. I’m also not opposed to having a large box of wasps on the bus with a remotely-actuated lock, and using that as a deterrent from kids acting like fools. Just make sure the kids know that if there’s any bullying or other bullshit, a code is sent and then the bus is full of angry wasps, and then nobody is happy.
Of course, that’s kind of absurd. All you really need is an opaque box labeled ANGRY WASPS and some buzzing sound effects and a very convincing and well-spread rumor that some kid’s friend’s cousins’ brother was on a bus when they remotely released the wasps, and it was absolute hell. The kids just need to believe in the threat of the wasps, you see.
Okay, I’m maybe being a little silly about the wasps, but I do think there are likely some options for school buses to operate without direct adult supervision; they would of course be GPS tracked and have remote adult supervision. I’mm not sure how many parents may be comfortable with that, but the whole point of this is that there simply aren’t enough people to take these jobs, so an automated bus that still needs an adult supervisor would still have that issue. Of course, it could open the job up to people unable or unwilling to take a bus driving job, so perhaps it could be helpful even with the requirement of an adult on board.
So, here’s my elevator pitch: make school buses automated, even with existing Level 4-ish technology because the low-speed, consistent-route school bus use case is ideal for really optimizing what AVs are good at; this can help alleviate the nationwide school bus driver shortage, adequate monitoring can be implemented to keep the kids safe, and besides, it’s hardly the most reckless thing we’ve tried when it comes to busing our kids to and from school.
I should probably leave out the bit about the wasps.
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I used to work for a school and have a story involving a WASP, a bus and a student. I can’t tell the details here, but it was hilarious. The WASP was very helpful that day. (it might have been a bee, but with the chaos I didn’t get a clear look).
One, more pay, for both teachers and bus drivers, requires a bigger budget. Two, a bigger budget, most likely, requires higher taxes. That’s always a hard sell (see “no new taxes”!). Three, as long as the bus system gets (nearly) enough drivers to show up for a (paltry?) $X/hour, there’s little reason to pay ANY more than that/the bare minimum necessary (see “the budget”). And four, most workers are/will only be paid their “replacement cost”, not what “they” believe they’re “worth” . . . “It’s just business . . . “
Errrr….with the record for most self-driving systems, there is no way in hell I would put the safety of my kid on a self-driving bus thanks.
Someone else said it: pay the drivers better. Back in my home town there was a huge debate when some company came in and told the school district that they could transport Precious much cheaper than the school could. Of course, they would have to sell all the school busses and fire the drivers (as well as the remainder of the transportation department). For a cool low fee, the school board administrators couldn’t salivate fast enough to do so and hand this company the contract. Later they found out that the buses were less maintained, the drivers barely qualified, and severely underpaid. Chaos ensued. And the transport company raised the annual rates. And raised them. And raised the,m. And raised them. But too bad, because the cost of bringing back the transportation department, buying back the busses, and rehiring drivers would cost way too much now, as they would have to start from scratch. We need to do more than just pay drivers better, we need to get rid of these predatory “transportation” companies.
I hope this was meant to be satire.
This is a great idea! Putting the people we treasure most in a machine driven by inevitably buggy software using never-will-be-perfect sensors cant possibly go bad
They should just build monorails to schools
Society’s rejection of the monorail is a crime I lay directly at the feet of Walter Elias Disney and Michael Mouse.
I’m sorry, Jason, but no. There is no way I’d ever put my child on a 7 ton battleship, let alone expect it to stop safely in front of them without plowing through the entire bus stop.
I drive a school bus. It is a great semi-retirement job, as I had previous driver supervision responsibilities. THIS IS THE DUMBEST IDEA. Routes are NOT the same each day. We have to react to different situations each day. For example, another bus has a mechanical issue, so we are re-routed to cover that route. Or a student misses a bus, so another picks up that student. Try maneuvering around a bus stop or school when kids are running around and parents are driving around. The average elementary school is a traffic nightmare when school is out. Shocking to hear, but a lot of parents are idiots. While driving is our primary task, controlling student behavior is a big part of our day. Video monitoring will not do it (the buses are already equipped with video, and it is not a deterrent). We are trained to handle medical and behavioral issues. We are also the 1st school employee the students see each day and need to be role models. Finally, we are handling field trips and sports trips when not handling school routes. In addition, there are students with special needs that we accommodate. Recently, I witnessed an elementary student start to run UNDER another bus to retrieve a rolling water bottle. I used the 2-way radio to shout a HOLD command to that bus driver; how will the self-driving bus handle that situation? Very naive and stupid idea.
The article is insulting and should be retracted.
As a fellow transported I agree with all of it. But it is still coming. Eventually it will come down to tax payer money. A $200,00.00 robo-bus costs less than a $125,000.00 regular bus with 10-12 years of driver pay including benefits coming in around $400,000-$600,000. Money. All of it comes down to cash. Over-the-road trucking, ride-share businesses and pupil transportation are the low hanging fruit. As with privatizing school bus operations; all the school board sees is less money going out the door. At least going by the sales pitch.
This would be great where we live, where half the bus route is on a gravel road, and the road gets icy during the winter. Add in the fact that children are heathens, and usually have a gang mentality when it comes to bullying, I can only see this going smashingly.
It would only take one group of kids laying a large stick across the road to shut down the bus route.
Oh wow. This is … whooo boy! You actually think video cameras and a loud speaker is going to do ANYTHING to stop kids from doing absolutely atrocious things to each other? Oh my sweet sweet Jason. Otto must be a very good boy.
For background. I teach middle school shop classes. I actually have a lot of respect and trust in my students … or at least most of them. I have to in order to do what I do. Most people think I’m fucking NUTS for turning a bunch of teens and preteens lose in a wood and sheet metal shop, but I’m quite proud of the fact that I’ve never had a student get any major injury in my class. I’ve never even had one need stitches.
That said, having groups of them with no adult on the bus would never work in a million billion years! There would be horrendous emotional abuse, grievous injuries, sexual assaults, and even deaths.
I think you’d still need an adult on board, but this could work great. If the adult does not need to drive the bus, it opens up the field of candidates significantly. Also, an adult bus monitor who doesn’t need to operate the vehicle would be much more capable of maintaining some semblance of order than a bus driver. I like it!
How about noooo!!
No adults on the bus? There’s going to be at least one kid that dies.
That’s not hyperbole, that’s not a joke, there will be a child that dies because there’s no adult there.
A local high school had two kids OD due to fentanyl laced THC vape cartridges a couple weeks back, one of them died overnight. That happened (I believe) during gym/P.E./whatever it is called now when the kids were outside and away from easy, direct supervision.
There are multiple examples of fights on buses that go way too far before someone can intervene.
Its going to be full on Lord of The Flies for that 45-60 minute bus ride to school.
I’m friendly with a lot of bus drivers (small town, work at a place they frequent) and you are spot on. The issues that they tell me about must be amplified in larger areas just due to way more people. Even if we ever automate the driving part, there ALWAYS will need to be an adult there. I would never send my kids on a buss without an adult present.
Far too many parents don’t know the school their child attends much less the bus number. As long as there is a bus, any bus to transport them I don’t think a majority will care about supervision. At least until the fights and drug use and deaths on these robo-buses receives national attention.
Maybe we should let ChatGPT write articles about taillights and use stable diffusion to render 2042 Ford Crown Victoria concepts. After all, these are far less important jobs than safely shuttling kids to school and back daily.
Sorry Jason, you are way off the mark here. The answer is to pay people a living wage.
That isn’t the only answer. Good pay, year-round work, good benefits (which is there I think) and treating them properly would go a long way towards bus driver retention.
No, this would not work.
Without an adult present each ride would be a chapter from Lord Of The Flies.
I think just paying drivers (in all fields really) what their labor is actually worth would be a much easier fix than trying to jam a square peg into a round hole and hope that the busses get to school without the kids killing each other or some exigency outside of the buses programming happens.
But then this is America and such things are unthinkable, I look forward to the inevitable 20 bus long blockage in the middle of a highway like occurs in San Francisco courtesy of Cruise’s AVs.
We get that in Canada too- the local place advertises for drivers, they pay 20 per hour but you have to pay for your annual medical $150, plus training. and you only get paid when you are driving students, the shift in the am and pm and not while driving the bus back and forth to the storage place that is usually in the middle of nowhere. It may be somewhat attractive in a small town but in the cities you are better off working for a fast food place
The concept of not being paid in between the routes is genuinely insane to me. It’s not likely you can fit a different part time job in between bus routes, therefore it’s impossible to hire anyone that actually needs a stable income. This is why the entire applicant pool are retired people in their 60s. I’m not sure if some districts do this, but it seems like in between routes you could have the drivers perform other work if it’s unthinkable to have the people that perform this pretty crappy job be paid for time they aren’t actively driving.
At first until I read that section further, I wasn’t sure if the heading ate the capitalization and it was actually WASPs that were to be the suggested source of monitoring student behavior.
No, no, no.
Fix the pay issue, so it’s not just seniors driving the bus, which is pretty much how it is where I live. Pay them a living wage, because there’s no reason any full-time job that doesn’t pay a living wage should exist. While you’re at it, fix the pay issue for a lot of other jobs, too.
Fix the brat issue, if your kid is a terror who can’t ride a bus without being disruptive, then drive your kid to school yourself. Or make them walk, like I did back in my day, in a driving blizzard, 10 miles, uphill both ways.
Lousy pay and bratty kids are the reasons why there is a shortage.
That is it. It is not a full time job.
It might as well be.
3 hours of work in the morning, 3 hours in the afternoon, 1 hour of paperwork/admin duties, that’s 35. Not ever full-time job needs to be 40-hours a week.
We just increased their minimum hours to 6 per day including any paperwork. The bigger issue is days on duty. Regular school year is about 180 days. Add in summer school (if available) and intersessions and you still have an overall shortage of work for many people.
This.
It’s a simple solution.Just increase pay and child discipline
It’s not that simple. Policy and law practically prevent bus drivers from touching students much less implementing discipline.
It isn’t just a pay or benefits issue. I work in student transportation. We hire on at $17.00 an hour and most seasoned drivers make over $20.00 an hour. They are guaranteed 30 hours a week which no one working for that wage considers full time. Bus drivers work approximately 180 days a year. There is considerable unpaid off time for them. Yes we have intersessions and summer programs, but on the surface it looks very much like a part-time job. Getting younger people to apply to be a dedicated, motivated employee is difficult within those limits.
Add in most supervisors have little to no training in management or even consider the position a management position at all. Drivers leave because they are (or they think they are) treated like rubbish. As a supervisor with management experience I tend to agree with them. Most supervisors (Lead Drivers/Dispatchers, Assistant Coordinators, Coordinators or Foreman spend their time belittling their employees.
So pay can be an issue but it isn’t the only issue. But even if we fix those issues we would still face a shortage of applicants. I think pupil transportation will be the second or third “sector” to get a push for autonomy behind over-the-road trucking and local ride-sharing endeavors. I think a school bus would need many more internal and external cameras to monitor what needs to be seen. Kids will get in, over, under and between everything. But even with the safety issues autonomous school buses are coming, ready or not.
A real monitor still needs to be on the bus. Kids get into fights for the silliest (to adults) reasons. Someone needs to enforce assigned seating for the troublemakers and console little kindergartener Timmy when the fifth grade bully picks on him for their disability. Plus write the note to Principal Skinner that the bully needs bus privileges yanked because this is the third time this week they’ve been caught. So yes, real live adults not afraid of the kids need to be on any future robo-bus.
In that case then the real live adult can just drive the bus too and forgo the robo-bus aspect entirely.
Bus monitors are in shorter supply than drivers. THOSE employees are very under-paid and under appreciated.
Ideally, a cultural shift would occur where we valued the people who transport our children to and from school by paying them a truly decent wage, and treated them as an important asset to the community. Regardless of pay, I don’t know too many people who would choose to be a bus driver unless they had no other options. Any sort of public transit in this country being looked down on as “for the poors” doesn’t help.
That being said, I think even better than autonomous buses would be autonomous VANS. When you don’t need a driver, you can potentially fit out far smaller vans for this duty. More vehicles sure, but also hopefully shorter, more specific routes. Make them EVs and you’ve got yourself a stew going.
You can’t pay teachers a realistic wage for spending an entire day with your spawn. What makes you think they want to pay drivers a real wage.
It all comes down to how we value people that we put our supposed most important thing in charge of.
I mean, yeah that’s why I said we’d need a completely different attitude or cultural shift towards actually respecting and paying bus drivers. I’ll say this, I live in NY, and we do for the most part pay teachers here an acceptable amount, certainly compared to many other states.
Great Idea! They could be sponsored by the local utility company. Maybe they could be hacked and end up at the malt shop some afternoon!
Seriously, this makes a lot sense! Good Job!