Abstract
In the past years, the growing demands on transport safety have led to more safer buses and coaches in Germany. A comparison of means of transport regarding the fatality risk per billion of passenger kilometers shows in this context that coaches are 20 times safer than cars.
However, each year in Europe 30,000 coach and bus occupants sustain injuries and 150 to 200 get killed in accidents, a fact that shows a further potential in increasing bus and coach passenger safety. In the light of this background, the Institute for Vehicle Safety Munich (IFM) has performed a total evaluation of all bus and coach accidents with injured persons in Bavaria from the year 1998. Furthermore, the IFM is involved in the project Enhanced Coach and Bus Occupant Safety (ECBOS), in the frame of which it established a database for particular serious accidents.
The following paper introduces a study being currently carried out on the Bavarian accident data and, additionally in this context, nationally and Europe wide findings of the ECBOS project. The Bavarian study, of which main objectives are to identify current major safety problems and to derive measures for an enhanced passenger protection, focuses on accident characteristics (e.g. type of accident, accident location) on the one side and injuries to bus occupants respectively the opponent party under consideration of category (e.g. double-decker coach), manufacturer and operation type (e.g. school bus) of the involved buses/coaches on the other side. Basically, two main accident groups could be identified: firstly, collision accidents as the major part of the study and, secondly, non-collision incidents (accidents which did not involve a collision of the bus with another road user).
An ad hoc evaluation has revealed in a first step that bus accidents turn out lightly for passengers. However, particular single accidents with tipping over/rollover may result in serious or fatal injuries due to roof intrusions, structure deformations and broken side windows. Moreover, unrestrained occupants may be ejected out of the vehicle.
The risk of being killed or seriously injured is also given by collisions with traffic participants of similar masses (e.g. trucks, trailers, coaches/buses, etc.). Regarding non-collision incidents, it has been observed that serious injuries (e.g. femur fracture, head laceration) might occur to city bus passengers when the bus performs a breaking or starting maneuver.
The paper closes up with requirements and suggestions for a better protection of coach and bus passengers with respect to active and passive safety, whereby further research activities planned for the future will be presented.