Clean School Bus
Overview
Clean School Bus is a national, innovative program designed to help communities reduce emissions from older diesel school buses. School districts, fleet owners and operators, bus drivers, parents and students all have a role in helping to reduce diesel emissions from school buses.
School buses travel about four billion miles each year, and more than 25 million American students ride a school bus every day. These buses provide the safest transportation for getting children to and from school.
While all new buses must meet EPA’s tighter emission standards, many older school buses continue to emit harmful diesel exhaust. Diesel exhaust has a negative impact on human health in general, and especially on children because they have a faster breathing rate than adults and their lungs are not yet fully developed.
There are a variety of clean diesel strategies for making school buses a cleaner way for children to get to school. One of the easiest ways to reduce school bus emissions and save money is to reduce idling. Another effective method is to replace the oldest school buses in the fleet.
In addition, EPA offers funding for diesel emission reduction programs. In January 2011, President Obama signed legislation reauthorizing DERA funding to eligible entities for projects that reduce emissions from existing diesel engines. Appropriations are determined by Congress on an annual basis.
Clean School Bus publications can be ordered or downloaded, including "The Magic School Bus Gets Cleaned Up", and the Spanish version "El Autobus Mágico Necesita Una Limpieza", special-edition children’s books created by EPA in partnership with Scholastic, Inc.
Additional Resources
- Minnesota Clean School Buses, a Clean Diesel project
- EPA's Region 8 Idle Free Schools Toolkit
- EPA's Clean Diesel Regional Collaboratives
- EPA’s Children's Health Protection
- EPA's Healthy School Environments
- EPA's Creating Healthy Indoor Environments in Schools
- EPA’s Indoor Air Quality Design Tools for Schools
- Children’s Exposure to Diesel Exhaust on School Buses, Environment & Human Health, Inc, 2006
- School Bus Particulate Matter Study, Clean Air Task Force, Inc, January 2005
- Children’s School Bus Exposure Study, California Air Resources Board, April 2004
- Pollution Report Card: Grading America's School Bus Fleets (PDF), Union of Concerned Scientists, February 2002 (8 pp, 400K)
- What Parents Need to Know about Diesel School Buses, Natural Resources Defense Council, March 2001
- No Breathing in the Aisles, Natural Resources Defense Council, February 2001
- National School Transportation Association
- National Association for Pupil Transportation
- National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services
- School Bus Fleet
- American School Bus Council