Dataset of U.S. School Bus Depots

This technical note details the creation of a first-of-its-kind dataset of school bus depot locations in the United States using remote sensing and aerial imagery. The dataset is intended to support environmental justice analysis regarding air pollution hotspots in underserved communities and to assist in electricity grid planning for school bus electrification.

• The researchers identified 11,309 school bus depots across Washington, DC and the 48 contiguous U.S. states. Of these, 5,730 depots (51%) are located at schools, which is defined as being within 350 meters of the nearest school.
• The distribution of depots varies by state, with North Carolina having the highest count at 841, followed by Texas (697) and New York (618). Conversely, South Dakota and Wyoming had the lowest counts with 29 depots each. The median number of depots per state is 218.
• The dataset was developed using an object-based approach with remote sensing data, primarily the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) dataset, to locate buses by color and size. Validation against independent reference datasets of 506 depots showed an omission error rate of 15.2 percent (77 depots).
• The dataset is designed to address the lack of public information on bus depot locations to analyze air pollution hotspots in underserved areas and to support electricity grid planning and resilience for future bus electrification.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Dataset of U.S. School Bus Depots. https://www.wri.org/research/dataset-us-school-bus-depots

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Dataset of U.S. School Bus Depots. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/dataset-us-school-bus-depots.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Dataset of U.S. School Bus Depots |url=https://www.wri.org/research/dataset-us-school-bus-depots |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutenddataset, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Dataset of U.S. School Bus Depots}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/dataset-us-school-bus-depots}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }