Safer buses for passengers and pedestrians: Potential effectiveness of protective safety using in-depth data from Germany and India

Public buses are considered as an important element in a sustainable transport strategy. The objectives of this study are to suggest potential protective safety interventions for mitigating injuries for bus passengers and pedestrian injuries in bus-to-pedestrian crashes, and to estimate their effectiveness in both, Germany, and India. The key countermeasures were pedestrian airbag, run-over protection and seatbelt use for bus passengers. This study used crash data from German In-depth Accident Study (GIDAS) and Road Accident Sampling System India (RASSI) databases. The effectiveness of the interventions was estimated with counterfactual analyses. Most moderate-to-critical bus occupant injuries in GIDAS were to the head caused by interior bus components. In the RASSI head injuries were also frequent, often due to bus interior, but also due to ejection and impact to ground or bus exterior. In bus-to-pedestrian crashes head injuries were frequent in both GIDAS and RASSI, predominantly due to an impact with the bus front or the ground. In GIDAS, 14% injuries can potentially be avoided by pedestrian airbag, and 26% by run-over protection, and 46% of the bus passenger injuries by seatbelt use. Using RASSI, it was estimated that 10% and 11% of pedestrian and 100% of bus passenger injuries can potentially be prevented. This translates to preventing up to 180 injured pedestrians and 1,994 injured bus occupants in Germany, and 6,682 injured pedestrians and 36,271 injured bus occupants in India. If the suggested and evaluated countermeasures were implemented, bus transport would be substantially safer.