Abstract
Coaches are one of the safest means of transportation. Nevertheless EvoBus, a branch of Daimler Buses, decided to further improve the passive safety of their Mercedes- Benz and Setra type series. If one considers coach accident statistics, it can be noted that the frontal collision and rollover are the most dangerous accident types. The passive safety in case of a roll-over may be considered as quite high due to the application of the ECE regulation no. 66. The frontal collision, however, has attracted only little attention and as of now there are no regulations governing this accident type. The goal of the here described product development was to improve the frontal impact safety in such a way that 80 % of all real accidents will be covered. Based on this requirement a new crash test has been developed. The specification is as follows: Impact speed: 25 km/h Barrier type: rigid Frontal overlap:100 % In order to meet the self-imposed requirement, the complete front structure has been redesigned. Major elements are four longitudinal members, a movable platform, on which the driver’s seat is fixed and a transverse beam serving as a front underrun protection. The whole system called “Front Collision Guard” has been tried and optimised in four crash tests. In each test hybrid-III-dummies were placed on the driver’s and co-driver’s seat. The readings turned out to be far below established injury criteria. The “Front Collision Guard” is now available in the model families Mercedes-Benz Travego as well as Setra TopClass and ComfortClass. KEYWORDS – Coach, Mercedes-Benz, Setra, Passive Safety, Crash Test, Crash Simulation, Front Collision Guard