Technical Note for a Dataset Modeling the Societal Health and Climate Benefits Associated With Transitioning the US School Bus Fleet From Diesel to Electric

This technical note describes the methodology and dataset used to quantify the societal health and climate benefits of transitioning the United States school bus fleet from diesel to electric, providing monetized impact estimates at the US county level.

• Approximately 90 percent of the roughly 500,000 school buses in the United States utilize diesel fuel, which emits volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter. These emissions are linked to cognitive and respiratory impairment, and the World Health Organization has classified diesel exhaust as a carcinogen.
• Electric school buses are identified as having the lowest greenhouse gas emissions of any school bus category, even when electricity generation is considered, and they produce no tailpipe emissions.
• The research utilizes reverse source influence modeling to estimate the societal benefits of replacing aging diesel buses with either new diesel or new electric buses, accounting for both tailpipe and upstream emissions at the US county level.
• The resulting dataset provides monetized estimates of health and climate impacts for each county in the contiguous United States. These are presented as total impacts ($/year) or unit impacts, which are measured per school bus ($/bus-year), per VMT ($/1,000 VMT), or per ton-CO2 emitted ($/ton-CO2).

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Technical Note for a Dataset Modeling the Societal Health and Climate Benefits Associated With Transitioning the US School Bus Fleet From Diesel to Electric. https://www.wri.org/research/technical-note-dataset-modeling-societal-health-and-climate-benefits-electric-school-buses

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Technical Note for a Dataset Modeling the Societal Health and Climate Benefits Associated With Transitioning the US School Bus Fleet From Diesel to Electric. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/technical-note-dataset-modeling-societal-health-and-climate-benefits-electric-school-buses.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Technical Note for a Dataset Modeling the Societal Health and Climate Benefits Associated With Transitioning the US School Bus Fleet From Diesel to Electric |url=https://www.wri.org/research/technical-note-dataset-modeling-societal-health-and-climate-benefits-electric-school-buses |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendtechnical, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Technical Note for a Dataset Modeling the Societal Health and Climate Benefits Associated With Transitioning the US School Bus Fleet From Diesel to Electric}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/technical-note-dataset-modeling-societal-health-and-climate-benefits-electric-school-buses}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }