With the new academic year just over a week away, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) held a remote video workshop for school bus operators in Dubai, attended by 120 representatives from schools and schools’ bus operators.
The event focused on the precautionary measures that nee to be taken to contain the spread of coronavirus COVID-19 among students retuning back to school.
In Dubai over 174,000 pupils from public and private schools go to school each day on over 6,700 school buses.
Some of the guidelines discussed include:
- Buses to operate at 50% maximum capacity
- All students and staff to be temperature checked
- Masks for students are mandatory for the ages as specified by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) and Dubai Health Authority (DHA).
- Students from the same immediate family (siblings) may sit together.
- Bus seating arrangement should be clearly marked and easy for students to understand fso that the same students are seated in the same seats every day for regular bus routes.
- Students should remain seated in their own seats and should not move around the bus.
- All passengers and drivers should perform hand hygiene before and after being on the bus.
- Bus pick-up and drop-off of students at the school should be staggered where possible, to avoid crowding at the school entrance.
- School bus operators to ensure there is enhanced cleaning of seats and other high-contact surfaces, such as windows and railings, before each new group of students attends the bus.
- Bus attendants that support students on buses to try their best to avoid touching students or their belongings
- Where there are common card readers on the buses for staff or students, an alternative mechanism shall be devised in order to avoid a common touch point.
- Each bus to have sufficient fresh air circulation after every trip as and when possible.
- Bus operators shall ensure that up-to-date lists of bus riders and drivers are maintained to enable contact tracing if required.
- Parents are advised to report all positive cases and any suspected cases at the earliest possible opportunity.
Adel Shakri, Director of Planning and Business Development, Public Transport Agency, RTA said of the meeting, “In its regulatory role over the school transport sector activity in Dubai, RTA’s Public Transport Agency is committed to making every effort to safeguard the safety of students during their mobility to and from schools. The holding of this workshop echoes our leaders’ directives to implement comprehensive precautionary measures to cope with the outbreak of COVID-19 across all sectors, the school transport sector included.”