A School Bus is a type of bus specifically designed and manufactured for student transportation and transports students to and from school and school events. Outside North America, the term can often be applied to an ordinary bus used for a school service or an older bus or coach retrofitted to become a dedicated school bus.

The first known School Bus was a horse-drawn coach, designed to carry 25 children. It was constructed in 1827 by George Shillibeer for Newington Academy for Girls, a Quaker school in Stoke Newington, north-east of London, United Kingdom.

Since 1827, the concept has developed globally and most notably in North America where today there are an estimated 8 million children that get transported to and from school every day using a Yellow School Bus.

School bus yellow is a colour which was especially formulated for use on School buses in North America in 1939. The colour is now officially known in Canada and the U.S. as National School Bus Glossy Yellow and was originally called National School Bus Chrome. The pigment used for this colour was, for a long time, the lead-containing chrome yellow.

The yellow colour was chosen because it attracts attention and is noticed quickly in peripheral vision, faster than any other colour. Scientists describe this as follows: "Lateral peripheral vision for detecting yellows is 1.24 times greater than for red."

In April 1939, Dr. Frank W. Cyr, a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York organized a conference that established national school-bus construction standards for the U.S., including the standard colour of yellow for the school bus. It became known officially as "National School Bus Chrome." The colour was selected because black lettering on that hue was easiest to see in the semi-darkness of early morning.

Each year, school buses provide an estimated 10 billion student trips in the United States. Every school day, 475,000 school buses transport 25 million children to and from schools and school-related activities.

In the UK the National Travel Survey 2010 by the Department of Transport confirmed that In 2010, 47% of primary school children walked to school, a further 43% were driven to school in a car. For secondary school children, 36% walked to school, while 24% went by car and a further 34% used local or private bus services. The mode of transport used varies by trip length. The average length of a trip to school increased from 2.1 miles in 1995/97 to 2.6 miles in 2010. During this period, the average trip length for primary school children increased from 1.3 to 1.5 miles, and for secondary school pupils from 2.9 to 3.5 miles. This reflects the shift from walking to car use over the same period.

In the United Kingdom, most student transport is performed by ordinary transit buses. These buses can be used for other purposes when not in use for school journeys. Most children use local scheduled public transport bus services. In almost all cases, dedicated school transport bus services in the UK are contracted out to local bus companies.

In the United Kingdom, there are concerns about children's safety after they have alighted from conventional buses used for student transport. There are also more general worries about safety, such as lack of seatbelts, crowded buses, and in Northern Ireland especially, the use of "three for two" seating, where three children are expected to sit on a bench seat intended for two passengers.

Other concerns include poorly maintained buses, drivers' backgrounds, children travelling on public buses and school children's behaviour. In one case, two 14 and 15 year old children fell out of a bus window, after they leaned on the side of the Premiere Travel bus they were travelling on.

As a result of this, over the past decade, starting in around 2000, the talk of and introduction of dedicated, yellow student-specific school buses has been widespread. In 2005, it was reported that the introduction of such buses would "save pupils". As well as safety benefits, it would also be better to the environment. North American-style 'yellow' school buses (built by European manufacturers) have been introduced by First Student UK and My bus in the UK over the last decade but progress has been confined to certain UK counties and has not been national and as widespread as was originally envisaged.

That is until now, where a detailed business proposition to restructure a company that has a leading name and reputation and which has been around since 1928 has chosen to evolve and specialise in this area of transportation and to define its own agenda in raising standards of travel and service, so that a home to school Yellow School Bus service can become a reality. The core focus is to make history by making the Yellow School Bus Company a success in the UK.

The Yellow School Bus Company is principally a School Transportation Management and Administration Services Company that is using all its experience of the industry to define a ground breaking Regulatory and Services Standard to ultimately raise the standards of School Transportation in the UK to successfully bridge the gap between the Yellow School Buses in North America and those here in the UK.