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who approves and supervises customized campus buses, and how to ensure safety?

text｜feng rui yang shuyuan li mengdi

editor:wang xiao

"hurry up! there's an accident! the child is under the bus!" on the morning of september 3, store manager wang jie (pseudonym) received a panicked call from a clerk. he quickly ran to the school 200 meters away, and the clerk's child had been crushed under a deformed bus.

together with several passers-by, they carefully dragged the child out from under the car, bit by bit, and sent him to the intensive care unit of a local hospital. several children of similar age were also injured. "they are all people with children, just imagine how sad they must be," wang jie was unwilling to recall.

according to the police report of dongping county, tai'an city, shandong province, at 7:27 on september 3, a bus company in dongping county, which was picking up students, hit and injured 24 parents and students on the roadside when it reached an intersection. as of that afternoon, 11 people died (6 parents and 5 students), 1 was in critical condition, and 12 were in stable condition.

the cause of the accident is still under investigation. in the eyes of many people, this is a sudden and special incident: the school used to have an orderly going on and off, and there was a strict boundary between the sidewalk and the road.

but people have pointed out that the vehicle involved may not be a regular school bus, but a bus customized by the school from the bus company.

in recent years, campus-customized special lines have become a routine business for public transportation in many places across the country. these vehicles have the function of school buses, but are not subject to relevant regulations, and there are gaps in approval and supervision. "how can we ensure the safety of this special group of students?" someone asked.

a sudden, accidental accident?

the whole city is paying attention to this accident.

li xing (pseudonym) lives only a hundred meters away from the school. at around seven in the morning, he heard continuous sirens. li quan opened the window and looked out, only to see police cars and ambulances passing by on the road. "there must be something wrong," li quan said. he checked social media at the time, but didn't see any news.

an hour later, li quan went out to work and passed by the gate of foshan middle school. he found that there was already traffic control there, and several police cars were maintaining order. when he arrived at the store, he learned about the accident from his colleagues.

at this time, 35-year-old wen li (pseudonym) rushed to the scene. she wanted to see if there was any help needed.

wen li watched as sanitation workers were using a sprinkler truck to wash the ground and the bus involved in the accident was being towed away. she heard people around her talking about how there were not enough ambulances because there were many injured in the accident, so they urgently dispatched several ambulances from the nearby county-level city of feicheng.

after returning from the scene, wen li was in a daze the whole day. she saw many citizens going to the scene to place food and flowers to mourn.

"everyone feels bad." at noon on september 3, li quan opened his wechat moments and saw messages about blood donations for children. in the square of dongping county theater, citizens who wanted to donate blood had lined up in a long line. "we are in need of ab and o types now!" li quan said excitedly.

"that's all i can say, but it's not something that can be prevented by paying attention." wen li changed her tone. in her and li quan's opinion, this accident was really sudden and accidental.

at the scene of the accident, the vehicle involved was being towed away. photo provided by the interviewee

the school gate used to be in good order, but that day was a special period.

"foshan middle school is a key school in the county." li quan said that although the school usually has a large flow of people, "order is well maintained."

li quan would pass by the entrance of the middle school every day on his way to and from get off work. he remembered that there was only one gate for students to enter and exit the middle school, which faced east from west. outside the gate was a t-junction, and the gate was located "on the horizontal bar of the t." he had seen the video of the incident, "the bus should have been running from north to south, and collided horizontally."

according to li quan, the crosswalks where students go to and from school are strictly separated from the road. the crosswalks are yellow and separated from the road by a green belt. motor vehicles cannot enter at all. there is also a row of stone pillars near the school gate. under normal circumstances, motor vehicles will not mix with pedestrians.

li quan said that the school has school protection posts and volunteers when students go to school and leave school, which are known as "red vests". parents and teachers take turns on duty, and there are more people on duty when school is over.

"students always line up at the intersection to go to and from school." li quan has observed that there are at least two or three people guarding each intersection. teachers and school leaders often stand at the door to maintain order, holding small red flags to direct students to cross the road.

but li quan and wen li pointed out that the time period when the incident occurred was very special.

"today is the first day of the first year of junior high school. there are probably too many people for new students to register," said li quan, adding that the incident happened during the peak school hours. the school has two traffic peaks every day, one from 7 to 8 o'clock when school starts, and the other before 9 o'clock when evening self-study ends, which lasts about an hour.

according to wen li's experience, local schools only open their gates at the start and end of school, so students cannot go in early and can only wait at the gate. "it was the most congested time, and an out-of-control bus came out, the impact was unimaginable."

the vehicle involved was not a traditional school bus or a customized bus

"this type of vehicle is very rare." what puzzled li quan was that the school buses in the city were all yellow and were mainly used to pick up and drop off elementary school students. he had almost never seen the gray-brown minibus like the one where the incident occurred at the gate of a middle school.

from li quan's observation, the entrance to the middle school is usually filled with private cars and electric vehicles. usually, these gray-brown minibuses are basically distributed in nearby towns and villages, used to pick up and drop off students from the towns and villages during holidays.

"this bus is not the school bus of the previous middle school." local resident xia jie (pseudonym) pointed out that dongping is a small county town and there are only two bus companies: one is the dongping branch of tai'an transportation group, and the other is the dongyuan bus company involved in this incident.

he said that currently most of the yellow school buses in the city are managed by tai'an transportation company. this company has been providing school bus services as early as 2015. as far as he can remember, at least before 2020, foshan middle school used yellow school buses from tai'an transportation company. he didn't know why the words on the vehicle involved in the incident changed to dongyuan bus company.

some local residents said that the vehicle involved might be a customized bus for the campus.

different from regular yellow school buses, customized buses are vehicles that are outsourced and are applied for by parents of some students collectively to the school because there is no direct route between their homes and schools.

a local bus enthusiast once encountered a gray-brown minibus with the same license plate as the vehicle involved in the accident during his daily photography. “ankang hospital shuttle bus” was clearly written on the front window of the minibus.

a bus fan took a photo of a vehicle with the same license plate. photo provided by the interviewee

a staff member of the operations department of dongyuan bus company in dongping county wrote on wechat that the bus company undertakes chartered bus business within the county all year round, including customized direct buses for students.

in other words, these buses not only pick up and drop off students, patients, and medical staff, but can also cruise around the city as ordinary buses.

this bus company provides charter services all year round. source: dongyuan bus video account

where is the customized campus supervision line created for the needs of families and schools?

in recent years, bus companies in hunan, xi'an, hainan, jiangsu and other places across the country have launched customized campus routes. many city buses have promoted this as a key business, which not only meets the needs of families and schools, but also helps companies increase revenue. in august this year alone, a bus company in changsha opened 86 customized campus bus routes.

a staff member of the operations department of dongyuan bus company in dongping county wrote in a video account: "the company has given priority to the development of customized bus business this year, opening a number of customized bus routes for students in the county and urban and rural areas. this has greatly alleviated the problem of road traffic congestion when picking up and dropping off students, and ensured the safety of students arriving at school." in june of this year, the bus company also provided customized bus services for another middle school in dongping county.

although campus customized buses have the same role as school buses, the same regulations as school buses do not apply to them.

traditional school buses are special vehicles with strict operating standards. according to the school bus safety management regulations and other regulations, school bus drivers need to undergo special pre-job training. in addition to vehicle operating organizations, schools also have special management responsibilities for school buses.

a person in the public transportation industry said that currently there are no screening standards for customized campus bus drivers, no unified industry norms, and operations and safety mostly rely on the self-discipline of the bus companies.

in august 2023, five departments including beijing’s transportation and education departments issued the "beijing customized school bus operation service supervision rules (trial)", which clearly stated that customized school bus refers to the use of new types of buses, and its operation requires coordination and cooperation among schools, parents, education departments, traffic police, bus companies and other parties.

wuxi city has issued a series of document guidelines to regulate the development of customized public transportation from aspects such as setting standards and specifications, strictly controlling source access, and conducting education and training.

however, the regulations in these documents are still vague on how to manage and who will manage.