August is the time for end of summer picnics, back-to-school shopping and early morning waits at the bus stop. In the coming weeks kids and parents will set their alarms earlier and roll out of bed and get dressed only to stand and wait for a yellow box to come rolling down the street.
Over 480,000 buses carry 25 million school children every year. Which means more than half of America’s school children take a bus to school every day. Because school buses account for such a large portion of the transportation industry, the environmental regulations are relatively strict.
Bussing companies across the nation are seeing the benefits of CNG. Blue Bird and Thomas Built Buses, two of the largest school bus suppliers in the country, have developed and operate buses run solely on CNG.
The Blue Bird bus company has been utilizing natural gas as a fuel source since 1991 with their Type D All American Rear Engine bus. Since the the increase in domestic natural gas production thanks to shale, Blue Bird has expanded its CNG fleet.
Since Thomas Built Buses released their Saf-T-Liner HDX 20 years, starting their company’s long history with CNG, they have added more than 2,000 CNG buses to the road.
On the Thomas Built Website they provide a detailed description of their CNG model.
So, in the next few weeks when the yellow buses start popping up, look for that blue CNG sticker indicating that they’re powered by natural gas.
