Passenger Casualties in Non-Collision Incidents on Buses and Coaches in Great Britain
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PASSENGER CASUALTIES IN NON-COLLISION INCIDENTS ON BUSES AND COACHES IN GREAT BRITAIN Alan Kirk*, Rachel Grant*, Richard Bird** *Vehicle Safety Research Centre **ICE Ergonomics Loughborough University United Kingdom Paper No. 296 ABSTRACT When these falls occur the design of the interior can present an injury risk. Of all the killed or seriously injured (KSI) passengers on buses or coaches in Great Britain, a In recent years bus design has changed as a result surprisingly high proportion, 64.3%, are injured in of new regulations to allow a wider population to non-collision incidents. A KSI casualty distribution use buses, especially with the introduction of low of this sub-sample identifies that 74.2% of the floor access. These features promote easier casualties are female and a large proportion, 58.0%, boarding and alighting and allow less mobile are elderly casualties 60 years of age or over. members of the population to make use of bus travel. Unfortunately this accessibility to travel INTRODUCTION may also increase the likelihood of these more vulnerable people receiving injuries on buses. Two major bus safety reports have recently been completed at Loughborough. Firstly the Many of the issues addressed are particularly 'Assessment of Passenger Safety in Local Service relevant to elderly people, small children and the PSVs', for the Department for Transport (DfT), people who accompany them. assesses the impact of the PSV Accessibility Regulations made under the Disability Keywords: Non-collision, DDA, DPTAC, PSV, Discrimination Act (DDA) (1995) and the Disabled Bus, Coach. Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) (established under section 125 of the 1985 METHODOLOGY Transport Act) recommended specifications on bus travel. Secondly 'Real World Bus and Coach This study uses British national road accident data, Accident Data from Eight European Countries', for commonly called 'STATS 19', to investigate bus Task 1.1 of the Enhanced Bus and Coach Occupant and coach accidents. The overall criteria for an Safety project (European Commission 5th accident to be included in the records are that a Framework Project no. 1999-RD.11130), is a person must have been injured in an accident on a collation of European data that identifies the public highway. These accident forms are important issues in bus and coach occupant safety. submitted to the Department for Transport (DfT) by It has become evident during these projects that each of the 50 police forces in Great Britain. non-collision incidents are an important part in the injury experience of bus casualties, especially for The definitions of injury severity used in the elderly occupants. database are: Fatal Injury: Includes only those cases where By consideration of both national statistics and in- death occurs in less than 30 days as a result of the depth cases a picture has been formed of the bus accident. and coach casualty population and the types of Serious Injury: Hospital in-patient, e.g. fracture, incidents in which these people are injured. These internal injury, severe cuts and lacerations, statistics are presented, along with possible reasons crushing, concussion or severe general shock. for such a high proportion of casualties occurring in Injuries to casualties who die 30 or more days after non-collision incidents and recommendations have the accident from injuries sustained in that accident. been made that would lessen the risk of these Slight Injury: Receive or appear to need medical injuries occurring, through better design and treatment, e.g. sprains, bruising, cuts judged not to operational changes. be severe and slight shock requiring roadside attention. These injuries occur due to a combination of factors. Occupants can fall due to slipping or The authors feel that the level of reporting of tripping on poorly designed floor surfaces or in wet injuries to bus and coach occupants in Great Britain weather conditions, or falls can occur due to is high at all injury levels, due to the responsibility acceleration forces as the bus brakes or pulls away. of the driver to report incidents to the operator. A.Kirk, Page 1 There is also a legal obligation to report incidents to fatal or serious injury than overall road users (5.7% the Vehicle Inspectorate, an agency of DfT. This against 13.1%). high level has been evident in the monitoring of police accident reports (received as part of an Figure 1 gives the overall picture of killed or ongoing injury study) in the Nottinghamshire and seriously injured (KSI) road user casualties in Great Leicestershire counties of Great Britain, from Britain. Casualties on buses and coaches represent February 2000 to February 2001. 1.4% of all KSI casualties (1.26% passengers). Data are available for Great Britain, which includes Cyclists 6.9% Motorcyclists England, Scotland and Wales. Whilst a separate Pedestrians 17.3% vehicle type code is given to buses and coaches 22.8% unfortunately there is no way to distinguish Buses/Coaches between a local service bus or coach and a coach. Others 1.4% The analysis therefore covers all buses and coaches 0.6% that have 17 or more passenger seats (regardless of Vans/Trucks whether or not they are being used in local service 3.3% operation). (average 1999 to 2001) Cars/Minibuses 47.7% As part of the study undertaken for the DfT, physical designs of the current bus fleet were Figure 1. Proportion of KSI Casualties by Road examined. This provided information on the types User Type of designs currently in use within the UK and the hazards associated with these designs. A task Whilst this percentage is low, and analyses of analysis was undertaken of the actual bus journey exposure indicate that bus travel is one of the safest from the passengers’ point of view. This identified modes of transport, this study identifies issues that the extent of which passengers would be exposed to should make local bus transport even safer. Recent any hazards during the journey including such experience in the UK concerning rail crashes things as boarding and alighting. As well as indicates that the public has a keen awareness of the investigating the bus design, passenger issues were safety of public transport and an expectation of considered. These included the effects of sensory very high levels of safety if they are to use public disabilities, slips, trips and falls and the transport. characteristics of the bus user population. This work has been used in this paper to identify how Also, as new low floor buses make travel more and why injuries occur. viable for less physically mobile passengers it is important to make sure that these people are not RESULTS suffering injuries inside the vehicle, which will make the overall proportion of bus casualties Overall Picture higher. It is also important to look to the future with most governments encouraging the greater use This study uses data from 1999 to 2001. The of public transport, especially in congested cities. distribution of injury severity, compared to car and taxi, and all road users is given in Table 1, averaged Accident Circumstances over these three years. 70% 65.1% Point of First Impact Table 1. Casualty Figures (ref. 1) 60% Number of Casualties 50% (Average per year 1999 to 2001) 40% Fatal Serious Slight Total 30% 21.8% 20% Buses and 12 511 8,577 9,100 Casualties all KSI % of 5.9% Coaches 0.1% 5.6% 94.3% 100% 10% 4.2% (Passengers) 3.0% 0% Did Not Front Back Right Left Cars 1,683 17,986 184,053 203,722 Impact (Occupants) 0.8% 8.8% 90.3% 100% Figure 2. Location of First Impact when All Road 3,427 38,129 276,411 317,967 Passengers (KSI) are Injured Users 1.1% 12.0% 86.9% 100% Figure 2 shows the location on the vehicle of the first point of impact (left and right are for an These figures show that when a passenger is injured occupant sitting in a vehicle facing forward). in a bus or coach they are less likely to receive a While this is not necessarily impact direction, over A.Kirk, Page 2 the whole national database it is a good estimation Interestingly there are more casualties when of the type of accident. It can be seen that 65.1% of alighting the vehicle than when boarding, with a all KSI passenger injuries are in non-impact shift towards a higher proportion of serious injuries. incidents. This could be due to drivers being less aware of these passengers or just the likelihood of falling 50% 43.7% down being greater. Also slight loss of balance can 45% develop when standing quickly after a period of 40% 35% sitting on the vehicle and bifocal glasses, that do 29.7% 30% not give good distance vision when looking down, 25% may also be a problem. 17.2% 20% 15% During the 3 years of data, 24 out of the 35 fatal % of all KSI Casualties KSI all of % 10% 9.4% casualties (69%) occurred when the passenger was 5% standing, boarding or alighting the bus or coach. 0% After studying some in-depth cases it is apparent Boarding Alighting Standing Seated Passenger Passenger that many of these fatal casualties in fact suffered from some kind of fall, trip or slip, whilst standing, Figure 3. Position / Action of KSI Casualties* alighting or boarding. *If a passenger is struck by a vehicle after safely alighting from a bus or coach they are counted as a pedestrian. If an injury Of all casualties that are standing, alighting or occurs due to a fall onto or off the vehicle they are recorded as boarding or alighting as appropriate. boarding, 83.7% are injured in non-collision accidents and it is important to note that 40.4% of Figure 3 shows that 56.4% of all KSI passenger seated casualties are also injured in such accidents.