Short bus
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A short bus is a school bus that is, as the name implies, shorter than a normal sized school bus. While larger school buses typically transport public school students on high density routes to elementary, middle and high schools, shorter buses are typically used for lower numbers of Special Education or Special Needs students who are typically educated in different facilities with resources to meet their needs. Such arrangements may serve children with learning disabilities like ADHD, Autism, Mental Retardation, or those who are physically impaired. [1] Some have automated wheelchair lifts to safely lift physically impaired passengers into the bus without the use of stairs.
Short school buses are generally the standard eight feet wide, but lengths vary. Many are roughly the same size as a van or minibus, and some are in fact built onto the modified chassis and/or body of a stock regular passenger van or truck by a bus manufacturer. A cutaway van chassis is the most common platform for such a conversion. [2] Some larger capacity models of short buses are similar in construction to the more commonly used large school buses, but are only shorter in length.
Although such smaller models of school buses are also used for magnet school programs, often transporting exceptionally talented and gifted students, and for many other special purposes where the volume of riders is low, short buses have become associated in some urban slang usage with riders who have mental disabilities.
See also
References
- ^ http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=short%20bus
- ^ "Handbook For Purchasing a Small Transit Vehicle". Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Bureau of Public Transportation. October 1998.