You may already know the benefits of school bus transportation to the school district and the community, but you may also be surprised to discover that school buses can benefit the environment.
The environmental impact of school buses is often overlooked, but it’s time that we should recognize these vehicles’ role in improving the environment by looking at the data below:
- According to the analysis conducted by the American School Bus Council, each school bus on the road is equivalent to 36 cars while doing far less harm to the environment than those 36 cars would on their own. Just imagine that – when you look at 480,000 school buses on US roads, the overall impact is truly impressive.
- All those buses are equivalent to around 17 million cars. So, in a single year, school buses across the US can prevent 62 million miles of unnecessary driving.
- School buses on the road will save around 2.6 billion gallons of gas. Thus, more than 56 billion pounds of carbon dioxide are not sent into the atmosphere.
When a city or town uses school buses to transport students, it helps reduce pollution locally and across the country by reducing commuter cars. Less pollution on the roads will improve both environmental and human health.
In addition, some of the savings are passed on to the school children’s parents or guardians. Every hour they aren’t spending driving to and from school, they can save money on gasoline. Plus, they can put those hours to better use than getting stuck in traffic. With more and more parents working remotely, having your son or daughter ride the school bus to school can substantially reduce air pollution.
So, the next time you’re talking about school buses with students or their parents, make sure they understand how beneficial school buses are not just for the safety of the children but also for the health of the environment.
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