Project P5: Assessing the Impact of WC19 Wheelchairs on the Transportation Safety of Wheelchair-Seated Students

Task Leader: Mary Ellen Buning, PhD, OTR, ATP

Co-investigator: Patricia Karg, MS

Other Participants: Joseph Ruffing (project staff: communications specialist); Pete Baxter (industry: Chair, National Congress on School Transportation (NCST) and Director of School Transportation in Indiana); graduate student; epidemiologist/statistics consultant

Project Update

This project is not scheduled to start until 11/08

P5 Annual Report 2007 (1.9 MB pdf)

Overview

This project addresses the key output of obtaining accurate and objective information regarding the real-world experience of transporting wheelchair-seated students in school buses, and thereby contributes to the RERC WTS intermediate outcome to effect changes in attitudes, policies, and procedures of key stakeholders involved in the transportation of wheelchair-seated students. The primary objective of this research project is to determine the impact of WC19-compliant wheelchairs on the transportation of students using wheelchairs as motor-vehicle seats in school districts throughout the United States.

 WC19-compliant wheelchairs are designed to increase safety and reduce error and time in wheelchair securement. Transportation professionals desire evidence of the impact of WC19-compliant wheelchairs on school transportation safety outcomes. In May 2005, the National Congress on School Transportation (NCST) adopted a resolution (appended below) to survey state directors of student transportation on the extent of WC19 wheelchair use in school districts across the US. The congress wants to determine if injury and liability related to WTORS decrease when WC19 compliant wheelchairs are used. Further, where incidents involving lift-equipped buses transporting students riding in wheelchairs have occurred, they seek data about the performance of WC19-complaint wheelchairs relative to other wheelchairs. This information will inform decisions and may guide pupil transit policy in school transportation districts around the US. Knowledge about unmet needs in transporting students seated in wheelchairs will help to define areas for future product and standards development, and needed changes in policies and regulations. 

The project includes two phases of data collection.  The first phase, taking place in years 3 and 4, will develop and distribute a questionnaire to state directors of pupil transportation. The second phase, occurring in years 4 and 5, will target local school districts and survey a geographically representative sample of school-bus drivers.

This project will produce two wheelchair transportation survey tools - one for state transportation directors and one for school-bus drivers. The data collected will be analyzed and results published in peer-reviewed journals and school transportation publications. The results will also be presented at the 2010 National Congress on School Transportation meeting and other appropriate venues. It will also produce advances in knowledge that can be used to inform the consortium of school transportation organizations and drive the development of transportation policy, training, and public awareness materials.  The data collected will provide evidence of the performance of WC19-compliant wheelchairs, thereby increasing awareness of the importance of these products and any need for modifications to the WC19 standard.

Research Hypotheses

• WC19-compliant wheelchairs increase the ease and frequency of proper wheelchair securement and user restraint than non-WC19 compliant wheelchairs.
• There are fewer travel-related incidents and injuries when students are riding in WC19 compliant wheelchairs than when they are riding in non-WC19 compliant wheelchairs.
• More than ten years after publication of FMVSS 222 and SAE J2249, there are varying degrees of conformity with WTORS usage in school buses.

Study Design

This project will begin in year three (2009) of the RERC.  Project leaders will begin Phase 1 by interviewing NCST personnel to clarify the types and specificity of data reported to state transportation directors, as well as collect samples of available data. This knowledge is essential for developing a questionnaire that state level transportation directors will support and to which they can respond. After reaching consensus on the breadth of the survey, the project research team will develop the survey tool with the oversight of an epidemiologist.  The survey tool will be beta-tested with the leadership team from the NCST before it is distributed to each of the fifty state pupil transportation directors.

Since data desired by the state transportation directors will probably not include the level of detail needed to understand some of the underlying issues, the RERC research team plans to extend the scope of the data collection to obtain data at the level of the local school transportation district specifically, the bus driver. For example, the RERC is interested in knowing about WTORS usage, driver training, implementation of safety practices within local transportation districts, time required for securement of WC19 versus non-WC19 mobility devices, lift operation, and practices on transporting lap trays, communication devices and oxygen tanks.

After reviewing the preliminary data from the survey of state directors, Phase 2 will begin to develop a second survey tool for completion by local district bus drivers. This second phase of the study will provide information about actual practices in transporting students riding in wheelchairs. It is anticipated that this phase will provide more information about day-to-day practices and about driver's issues and concerns. The results should help identify training needs, improvements in equipment usability, and WTORS issues in need of clarification.

In partnership with the NCST, a strategy will be developed to identify a subset of local transportation districts representative of the range of district sizes, school district vs. contract provider approaches, rural vs. urban locations, and six geographic regions of the country. Collecting data from bus drivers who are broadly disbursed might best occur via a website designed for data collection. This site will offer both an online survey and a printable PDF survey that could be mailed or faxed back to the research team.

The project leader and project staff have previously set up and conducted web surveys in two previous wheelchair and transportation studies. The webserver resources and staff's technical expertise allowed integration of participant responses with databases, and monitoring of survey responses during the data collection period.

Addendum to Project P5: Resolution on Wheelchair WC19 Data Collection

The following is a resolution that was passed at the National Congress on School Transportation by delegates and is the foundation upon which this research project was based:

As Amended,

WHEREAS, the National Congress on School Transportation (NCST), the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services (NASDPTS), National Association for Pupil Transportation (NAPT), and National School Transportation Association (NSTA) were instrumental in the development of the ANSI/RESNA WC19 Standard on Wheelchairs intended for use in motor vehicles; and

WHEREAS, transportation professionals are working for the safe transportation of individuals with disabilities that travel in wheelchairs and other wheeled mobility devices, and

WHEREAS, data collected on crash events could be used to compare the WC19 compliant wheelchairs to non-compliant wheelchairs; now

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that information collected nationally regarding the impact of the ANSI/RESNA WC19 Standard on wheelchairs intended for use in motor vehicles. This information would be collected through the cooperative efforts of the Committee on Wheelchairs and Transportation (COWHAT), NASDPTS, NAPT, and NSTA as well as the Accident Data Writing Committee of the NCST.

Submitted by:  Peter J. Grandolfo and the Wisconsin State Delegation, May 17, 2005

Last updated: December 4, 2007