Tag Archives: passengers

Bus Safety

Bus Driving Safety Round Up (Tips and Checklists)

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Whether you drive a charter bus, shuttle bus, school bus, tour bus or city bus, you know that the lives of your passengers are in your hands every day, and we want to help keep everyone safe, including you.  We’ve rounded up some of the best driving tips and pre-trip inspection checklists on the web for you to browse through.

Bus Driving Safety Tips and Checklists

We’ll start off with some inspiration from the NYC bus driver who never had an accident in 23 years of driving.  Driver Michael Sanua says, “The most important thing isn’t to win a beef with another driver, criticize someone who doesn’t drive well, or get where you’re going at the speed of light. The most important thing is to be conscious of driving at all times, and get where you’re going safely. It may sound boring, but that’s the secret, if there is one.” Read more of his story and his 5 driving tips here:

How NYC’s Best Bus Driver Stayed Crash Free for 23 Years

 

The US Department of Transportation reminds bus drivers to take care of themselves first.  Get enough sleep, eat well and stay fit to be at your peak performance behind the wheel.  Read more here:

Safe Tips for Truck and Bus Drivers

 

The Bus and Coach Smart Move Campaign offers a series of illustrated printouts to help drivers maintain their vehicles, drive safely in tunnels, and look at the whole system- from the driver’s personal well being, to the passengers behavior, to the bus itself- to ensure that everything is functioning well.

The Coach Driver’s Checklist

Safe Driving in Road Tunnels for Professionals

 

The West Carroll Parish School Board shared the School Bus Pre-Trip Inspection Checklist they use.  This checklist is printable, and has space for the driver to mark off each task as it is completed.  This checklist could easily be modified or used as-is for any type of bus.  You can view it here:

School Bus Pre-Trip Inspection Checklist

 

This Walk Around Checklist from the Health and Safety Authority of Ireland is also printable and provides space for the driver to mark off each item as they check its condition.  View it here:

Bus/PSV Driver Walk Around Check Sheet

 

We hope this bus driving safety roundup was useful to you, and we’d love to hear from you!  Please share with us how you stay safe on the road.

 

 

 

 

GTFS

GTFS – Why you are missing out on Passengers

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Increasingly, online maps and journey planning apps are the new “someone to ask” about how to get somewhere and it’s highly likely your business is not the answer they are giving…

It used to be enough just to get to #1 on Google search results.  However, that’s changed with the advent of Location Based Searches and Journey Planning smartphone Apps.  If your business involves taking passengers from A to B (and maybe back again), then to compete properly you now need your timetable, pickup and drop-offs appearing in these search results and journey apps.

More and more, tourists and irregular travellers are relying on these online mapping services to find their way around unfamiliar places and if your business is missing from these search results, then it’s highly likely they’ll choose one of the other alternatives offered.

To see if you or a business you know is missing out try this quick test.  Go to the following page (https://addtransit.com/missing-out.php) and enter one of the business’s pickup and destination locations.  If the business’s timetable and services do appear, then well done!  Otherwise, read on.

So, how do you get onto the online maps and journey planners?  Unfortunately, the schedule or timetable on your webpage, or your own custom built journey planner is just not enough.

You will need to create a GTFS file.  A GTFS file is a special type of file that contains information about your business, its schedule and timetable, and its routes and stops including their latitudes and longitudes.  The GTFS file is used by the online maps and journey planners to add your data to their systems.  There’s a number of ways to create a GTFS file, but if you have limited time or technical skills then getting a company such as AddTransit.com to do it for you, is a quick and cost effective solution.

Once the GTFS file is created, then you need to get the companies that use GTFS files to use it.  This normally involves adding a link on your website and submitting it to both GTFS directories and to the various search engines and journey planning app companies.  Each company has different submission forms, timeframes, and acceptance conditions.  If you got a company to create the GTFS file for you, then they should submit it for you.  Otherwise you’ll have to learn how to do it yourself.

Of course your timetable, stops and routes will change, so like all your marketing and customer service information, it’s important to keep the GTFS file up to date.  That way your passengers should be able to see your latest information.

Best of luck and have a great day.