Seat Design: An Important Consideration for Occupant Safety in Public Transit Buses

2008-01-2698

10/07/2008

Event
Commercial Vehicle Engineering Congress & Exhibition
Authors Abstract
Content
BC Transit, a crown corporation in the province of British Columbia, has reported injuries resulting from passengers sliding off seats during extreme braking and/or turning maneuvers. The corporation was eager to determine whether seat design could help minimize the likelihood of passengers sliding off seats and initiated a review of existing forward facing seats. The review examined seats of different designs within the corporate fleet plus a prototype seat. Without the advantage of seat compartmentalization, passive restraints or seat belts to reduce occupant movement during harsh maneuvers or in a collision, seat design in the first forward facing position should consider characteristics that provide passive restraint for the occupant. Tests using a weighted body form and three common clothing fabrics set against each seat cushion found a surprisingly wide range of friction values. The results show that both friction and seat base angle can be optimized to reduce the potential for rider injuries during turning and braking decelerations up to 0.5 g.
Meta TagsDetails
DOI
https://doi.org/10.4271/2008-01-2698
Pages
16
Citation
Macnabb, M., Little, A., and Lamb, A., "Seat Design: An Important Consideration for Occupant Safety in Public Transit Buses," SAE Technical Paper 2008-01-2698, 2008, https://doi.org/10.4271/2008-01-2698.
Additional Details
Publisher
Published
Oct 7, 2008
Product Code
2008-01-2698
Content Type
Technical Paper
Language
English