Cyr, a professor at Columbia University who passed away in 1995, became known as the “father of the yellow school bus” because of his work in the 1930s that set many of the modern school bus standards. So, in 1939, Cyr organized a conference that oversaw the creation of 44 standards for school buses, including body length, ceiling height, and aisle width. It also mandated that school buses should be painted with a particular yellow-colored paint. It was chosen for a simple reason: yellow has a high luminance value and a strong visually perceived brightness. “Before that, they sent kids to school in anything.”The color chosen at Cyr’s conference was called "National School Bus Chrome,” although it’s also known as “National School Bus Glossy Yellow.” Most of the other regulations set out by the meeting have changed over the past eight decades, but this iconic yellow paint has stood the test of time.