In the EC countries approximately 30000 persons are injured as bus or coach occupants in accidents with transportation in the size of more than 5000 kg every year. Some 150 of these persons suffer fatal injuries. The kind of accidents which occur throughout EC countries cover collisions, single accidents as well as “normal” driving manoeuvres. This study describes the results of an analysis of coach and bus occupant safety research and regulatory practices in Europe. The focus of this work is on occupant protection in several types of buses and coaches in both the scheduled and nonscheduled transportation.

For this purpose the connection between the occurrences at the real world accident scenes and the mandatory test methods has been analysed. The simple reason for that approach was the important feedback and usable knowledge of the accident incidents and their influence to improve current test procedures. Therefore an investigation was conducted on a number of topics including statistical collision data analysis, development of a bus accident database, reconstruction of real world accidents by means of an accident reconstruction software, component testing, full scale bay section testing, development of numerical simulation models for vehicle structure and occupant behaviour, parameter studies on occupant size influence, detection of injury mechanisms, cost benefit analyses for different test methods and finally the suggestion for improvements of current testing practices.

The main approach of this research work is the development of enhanced bus safety. This shall be obtained through the European Regulatory Agencies and ISO standard committees as this work will deliver the bases for new and released regulations. Some of the results of this study have already been taken to table an amendment to a current directive and will further be used to propose necessary improvements and additional research subjects either.