Improvements for Bus Safety

Today about 14 percent of passenger transport on the roads is accounted for by buses. For bus occupants, the risk of being killed as a result of a bus collision is about 40 times lower than in passenger car accidents. Therefore, buses can be classified as road vehicles with the most upgraded safety. Nonetheless there are some aspects of safety still to be developed in the future: there is still a lack of objective criteria designed to assess the driving behavior of the new type generation of high-capacity buses; underfloor cockpits restrict the driver's field of vision and expose the driver and, hence, the occupants to additional risk of injury in accidents. Bus driver cockpits could be adequately improved at low cost; the anchorage of seats and the capacity of deformation energy of backrests can be exploited to incorporate an advanced passenger restraint system; and there is need for specifying criteria of effectiveness applicable to emergency exit systems