Although integrated safety has become more important, secondary (passive) safety is still relevant in ensuring that the consequences of the crashes which always happen on our roads are as low as possible. This is particularly true for coaches that may be occupied by many passengers. Attention has also to be paid to the safety of driver and tour guide sitting in foremost position of the compartment.

To give an overview of the accident situation, results of updated statistical analyses are displayed for Europe and (in a more detailed form) for Germany. Combined with the results of in-depth studies it can be seen that rollover and frontal impacts are still the most relevant scenarios encountered in severe bus/coach accidents.

Regarding rollover, the superstructure design of new coaches has to be improved to meet the requirements of the revised ECE-R 66-02. This is illustrated by an example.

On a voluntary basis, few OEMs have improved the structure of the front end in relation to frontal impacts by using pendulum tests and full-scale crash tests in combination with advanced numerical simulation techniques. As a result, a new safety system called Front Collision Guard was developed and implemented in the latest series of Setra and Mercedes-Benz coaches.

For best safety performance in all kinds of accidents occupants should buckle up in their seats. Seats and restraint systems used in coaches have to meet the requirements of ECE-R 14 and ECE-R 80. To address this, updated results of a literature review and examples of seats and restraint systems used in modern coaches show the state of the art.

The article gives a short but complete updated overview of the most relevant aspects of the secondary (passive) safety of coaches. The main part describes the design and evaluation of the performance of the Front Collision Guard which may bring the secondary (passive) safety of coaches to a new level.