School bus electrification – A new frontier in bus driver safety and health

Abstract

Electric school buses are becoming an increasingly popular alternative to buses with internal combustion engines. These vehicles are seen as a promising solution to reducing the carbon footprint of the school transportation industry at large, which may ultimately bring about additional benefits. School bus drivers deserve particular attention in this area since their safety and health needs are often neglected by researchers, practitioners, and policymakers who tend to prioritize passenger safety even though the safety of student passengers is both literally and figuratively in the hands of the bus driver. This state-of-the-art literature review uses the Balance Theory of job design to explore a wide spectrum of safety and health issues among school bus drivers. Furthermore, it considers how school transportation electrification may impact different work system elements and what implications it might have for roadway safety and for occupational safety and health.