ARTICLES

4/10/2014· Automotive - Vehicular

Buses and Motorcoaches: New Thinking about Crossing Safety

By: Ned Einstein

Drummed into my head as a schoolchild was the mantra, "Cross at the Green, Not In Between." This slogan still provides the basis for Today's thinking about following the pedestrian path to and from school or a student's bus stop. When last year, a study of 7,000 pedestrian accidents in New York City over a four-year period was released, its findings turned this century-old cliché on its head. The implications for the pupil transportation industry are dramatic, and should awaken all of us to a new reality that may save hundreds if not thousands of lives a year, since most vehicle-pedestrian accidents happen to students walking or cycling to school, as well most of those traveling by schoolbus who are struck when crossing by third-party vehicles.

10/2/2014· Transportation

Some Things You Should Know About Seat Belts

By: Ned Einstein

As pressure from the unknowing continues to mount, rumors have it that the U.S. motorcoach industry is slowly inching toward the installation of seatbelts. That we are doing so by skipping the decades of seat compartmentalization that has helped fend off most seatbelt advocates in the schoolbus industry is only more unfortunate since existing motorcoach seats lend themselves to a far more evolved form of compartmentalization than the "incomplete compartmentalization" (in NHTSA's own words) of their yellow body-on-chassis cousins.

12/30/2013· Transportation

Awakening From Denial: Acknowledging the Crisis of Sleep Apnea

By: Ned Einstein

For decades, multiple sources cited the commonly-accepted statistic that only an estimated four percent of all individuals possessed a medical condition known as Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). OSA is largely the result of certain physical characteristics and lifestyle habits that reduce the flow of oxygen into one's lungs while asleep. These characteristics result in lowered blood oxygen levels throughout one's normal night's sleep, and lower the quality of that sleep such that the individual is fatigued through much of the day.

10/5/2019· Automotive - Vehicular

Autonomous and Inevitable: Drivers v. Robots, Part 1

By: Ned Einstein

This series of installments, which shall appear periodically, will examine some likely reactions to the robots by drivers.

2/4/2020· Automotive - Vehicular

Drivers v. Robots: Defensive Driving in the Age of Entitlement (Part 3)

By: Ned Einstein

With these dynamics, defensive driving is not a mere skill. It is a necessity. In their depositions, few professional drivers can identify even a handful of defensive driving principles...Robots have advantages beyond the elimination of jobs. Robots have no reaction time. They experience no fatigue. Disciplines like driver assignment cease to exist.

5/22/2020· Automotive - Vehicular

Drivers v. Robots: The Starting Five (Part 5)

By: Ned Einstein

The consequences of robots provide a stark contrast to the glistening, beautifully designed, brilliantly engineered, clean fuel-burning, energy-efficient vehicles displayed on the pages of NATIONAL BUS TRADER and other trade magazines. They are often creatively-deployed in well-marketed services, often optimizing both safety and comfort instead of trading one for the other

12/11/2019· Automotive - Vehicular

Drivers v. Robots: The Nature of Moden Travel, Part 2

By: Ned Einstein

We are only a few years away from the complete consolidation of fixed route transportation (transit, motorcoach and schoolbus) and the complete consolidation of demand-responsive transportation (paratransit, taxi, limousine, NEMT and special education). This installment will lay the groundwork by comparing modern travel to travel 30 years ago. The opportunities for motorcoach operators to benefit from these changes are once-in-a-lifetime.

11/11/2020· Transportation

Transit Survival in the Age of Covid-19

By: Ned Einstein

In two recent articles for National Bus Trader, I described how to put motorcoaches back on the road in both unusual and traditional roles. Here, I will outline some ideas for getting fixed route transit buses and passenger trains back to work, consistent with safety for both drivers and passengers.

8/5/2020· Transportation

Motorcoach Survival In The Age Of COVID-19 (Part 2)

By: Ned Einstein

Hopes, dreams, truth, lies, prayers and politics aside, one of the burning industry questions is: How do we get on the road again? In Part 1 of this series, I outlined a number of important roles motorcoaches could and should have played immediately when the outbreak began. Performance of these roles would have helped the country cope with the virus. It would have helped the industry, its businesses and its drivers survive it. It would have negated the related interruption in production, marketing, sales and maintenance of vehicles in support of this continuity.

9/17/2021· Transportation

Defending Public Transportation Contractors: The Whistleblower's Song (Part 3)

By: Ned Einstein

As we struggle to bounce back, limited stimulus funds notwithstanding, it would help to know what we are in for. Reducing bloated public sector transportation costs are likely a part of that future. In response, private contracting should explode. But this does not mean the operating environment will be rosy, or even coherent.