Good practice:

Training on safe bus usage by the public transport (PT) operator to school students

The campaign,organised and ran by the bus operator’s employees syndicate,was targeted to primary school students. The process’ total duration was 2 teaching hours per case and it included both theoretical education in the classroom provided by transport engineers (45 minutes) and experiential education inside a real bus with an experienced bus driver (15 minutes per group of 25 pupils). The 1st part included a presentation on PT, reference to the eco-friendliness of the bus and its rules (rights-obligations), explanation of bus tickets categories, demonstration of PT’s telematics system and multimedia applications as well as answer to all the questions posed. The 2nd part included the actual training on safe bus usage, demonstration of passengers’ proper behavior inside and outside of the bus and the passengers’ rights/obligations on action. It was an opportunity for a 2-way relationship with drivers, ticket inspectors, etc.
After the completion of the training, a certificate was provided to the participants, maps of the bus routes were distributed and a call for active participation of students in artistic creations (photos, sketches, texts, paintings) took place on the subject «I travel by bus, I protect the environment».
This practice achieved benefits for the young students, the local society and the bus operator as well. Integrating the methods to the annual program and having a school bus evacuation drill in case of emergency are some of the prospects for improvement.

This good practice requires a bus that can visit schools as the main element of the experiential part of the program and a couple of the public transport operator’s employees (transport engineers and experienced bus drivers) as trainers of the students.

The school community reacted positively to this initiative. After the first year’s success, there was a domino effect: every Mayor in Thessaloniki wanted a campaign in his municipality and every School Principal demanded the training to take place at this school. The fact that they didn’t have to pay anything, as it was the bus operator’s employees syndicate provision, was a motive for them.

In total, 57 schools participated until 2017 and over 6000 students have been trained!

The school educational campaign comprises an easily transferable practice as it does not require many resources. This is proven by the fact that it has already been transferred to many of the Municipalities of the city of Thessaloniki with many different geographical/demographic/”PT services provided” characteristics. Through this process, students can understand the benefits of PT, develop environmental consciousness, strengthen their role as active citizens both as students and as adults in the long run and acquire useful knowledge as future passengers, pedestrians and drivers for safer travelling. In parallel, the bus operator, apart from improving its image, can achieve the cultivation of a culture of consistent and loyal passengers and fight long-term ticket evasion.

Training and familiarising young students with the public transport is an important step towards the influence of behaviour of the adults of tomorrow. After all, educating children is a valuable asset in all ways.