Buses World News

How safe are bargain buses? * USA

* Massachusetts - The latest Megabus accident did not result in any fatalities, though most of the passengers' luggage was lost

-- Famous for its cheap prices and double decker look, a Megabus bound for Minneapolis caught on fire outside of Chicago on Sunday. Although no one was injured, the accident gave riders a shock and stoked existing concerns about the safety of bargain buses... The incident took place near the Illinois-Wisconsin border on Route 41 Sunday afternoon, according to fire officials. The driver and roughly 40 passengers were all able to exit the vehicle before firefighters arrived, but most of their luggage was lost. The cause of the fire remains unknown, and the vehicle sustained severe damage... Megabus spokesman Sean Hughes, the director of corporate affairs for the line's parent company, Coach USA North America, said the company will fully cooperate with the investigation... Megabus isn't the only discount bus company that has faced scrutiny for safety concerns. After a string of accidents in 2012, the Department of Transportation shut down 26 bus companies, not including Megabus, that provided services down the East Coast. A year-long investigation found that many bus drivers were driving without a license and were working long, strenuous hours. Many failed to pass the drug-alcohol test... In general, studies have found that riding in buses is many times safer than traveling by car...
(Photo: Megabus Catches Fire on Suburban Chicago) -- Boston, MASS, USA - Yahoo/The Christian Science Monitor, by Cathaleen Chen - February 22, 2016

Labels: bus accidents, buses safety, transport industry news USA

GRANT FUNDS FOR BUSES SECURITY * USA

* DC - FY 2016 Bus Security Grants now available, apply by April 25

-- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced the availability of $3 million in intercity bus security grant funds for 2016... This latest round of security grant funding for the motorcoach industry was announced yesterday through the DHS, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) websites. Since 2003, DHS has awarded nearly $103 million to secure motorcoach operations... The grant program is designed to improve security for intercity bus operators and passengers by providing funding for driver/vehicle and facility security enhancements, emergency communication technology, and training. This grant funding is a direct result of ABA’s (American Bus Association) continued lobbying efforts on the Hill and with the DHS on the continuing and ongoing need for enhanced security in our industry... This year, program eligibility has been extended to any qualified operator, including fixed route or charter service, using over-the-road buses and providing multiple trips to any of the areas defined by the DHS as Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) jurisdictions...
(Photo: Bus drivers seek better security) -- Washington, DC, USA - ABA. by Brandon Buchanan - February 17, 2016

Labels: buses safety, funds for buses

SAFETY BUSES * USA: Better flammability requirements

* DC - NTSB says commercial buses need they

-- The National Transportation Safety Board recommended that motorcoach interiors be designed with improved flammability requirements as well as improved emergency exits, and that event data recorders be installed on commercial trucks and motorcoaches... The recommendations resulted from the investigation of the truck-motorcoach collision that resulted in 10 fatalities in Orland, California, on April 10, 2014... In the crash, a 2007 Volvo tractor-trailer operated by FedEx Freight crossed a 58-foot-wide median, struck a 2013 Nissan Altima four-door passenger car, and then collided head-on with a 2014 Setra motorcoach... Both the truck and the motorcoach drivers were killed, along with eight motorcoach passengers...
(Photo: A California Highway Patrol Officer photographs the crash scene where a tour bus and a FedEx truck crashed on Interstate 5 in Orland, California, in April 2014. As a result of the crash the National Transportation Safety Board is recommending motorcoach interiors be designed with improved flammability requirements) -- Washington, DC, USA - The Trucker News Services - 14 July 2015

Labels: buses safety

SAFETY OF GIRLS STUDENTS * India: Compromised on school buses

* Chandigarh - Molestation of five-year-old on school buses

-- Norm of female attendant on school buses given the go-by... A day after the molestation incident, buses associated with almost every school in the city were seen without female attendants today... Women teachers were seen travelling by a few school buses in the morning and after school hours. They were also seen helping students board the buses. But they were not on board till the last student was dropped at his/her place in the afternoon... A survey by The Tribune revealed that the buses were jam-packed with students. The vehicles were having conductors and a majority of them were youths. Not a single bus in the city was seen having woman attendants and conductors, except for those of Carmel Convent School... School bus conductors were seen lifting small kids carrying heavy school bags on their back to help them alight from the bus at their respective stops... Almost all of the school buses on the city roads were found to be ill-equipped and did not have CCTVs and GPS facility. The bus crew members were neither wearing the uniform nor their name plates... The UT Administration is working towards installing GPS-based vehicle-tracking system on school buses as well as those for the general public to ensure safety and security of school students...
(Photo Tribune Photo by Manoj Mahajan - A conductor boards a school bus in Chandigarh on Thursday) -- Mohali, Chandigarh, India - Tribune News Service, by Dr. SB Deepak Kumar, deputy commissioner - May 15 2015

Labels: buses safety, passengers safety

SAFETY BUSES * USA: ‘Vision Zero’ aims to make city buses safer

* New York - In second year, “Vision Zero” plan to end traffic deaths

-- The mayor’s “Vision Zero” plan to end traffic deaths in the city is shifting gears in its second year, according to a report released Tuesday... The program helped bring pedestrian deaths to their lowest point in the city’s history in 2014... The city’s plan for the upcoming year will focus more on trucks and buses, which were involved in almost a quarter of the pedestrian fatalities... There were 15 pedestrian fatalities caused by buses in 2014, even though there was an average of slightly less than nine deaths in the past three years. Seven involved MTA buses, according to a spokesman... Another 17 pedestrians were also killed by trucks, slightly up from the average... The city is working with the MTA to make buses safe for drivers and pedestrians by using audio warnings for turns and technology that uses cameras and radar to warn drivers of possible crashes...
(Photo: Robert Miller) -- NY, USA - The New York Post, by Rebecca Harshbarger - April 21, 2015

Labels: buses safety

SAFETY SYSTEMS * Singapore: City buses would warn drivers of pedestrian movement at busy intersections

* Singapore - 3D lasers will help guide urban bus traffic under test program

-- Within the next 12 months Singapore will become the testing ground for a traffic safety system that connects laser radar sensors to city buses that would warn drivers of pedestrian movement at busy intersections. The stationary radar boxes will relay nearby pedestrian movements to drivers and warn them when an accident is imminent... The system will be deployed at two of Singapore’s busiest intersections and connect to 40 city buses before the end of March 2016, according to IHI Corp., the Tokyo-based maker of the 3D laser detection boxes that can pinpoint the location and speed of moving objects – in this case cars and people – every tenth of a second. Crucially, IHI claims the system works as well at night or in stormy conditions, a challenge for camera-based traffic safety systems, as it does on clear days... The so-called vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, or V2I, is still nascent and complicated by the need for considerable alterations to public infrastructure, as well as collaboration with regulators and automakers to make the technology viable, secure and widespread...
(Photo from IHI Corp.: Laser traffic scanner. The traffic control system will link IHI's 3-D laser scanners to 40 city-state buses in Singapore in a test program that would connect vehicles to stationary scanners that will warn drivers when pedestrians are detected in the roads) -- Singapore - IB Times, by Angelo Young - April 06 2015

Labels: buses safety, safety systems

SAFETY BUSES * UK

* Northern Ireland: Bus safety fears as one in four found 'unroadworthy'

Belfast,NI,UK -The Belfast Telegraph, by JOANNE SWEENEY –24 Sept 2014: -- One in four buses in Northern Ireland are unroadworthy or in breach of licensing regulations, teachers have been told, just a day after 45 pupils narrowly escaped death in a terrifying road crash... Teachers have been urged to stop children going on school trips if buses do not provide a seat and belt for every child, a special event at Stormont heard yesterday... The timely message that there is a significant number of defective buses being used to transport schoolchildren came just hours after a bus carrying 45 secondary schoolchildren was in collision with a car on the main Drumquin to Omagh road in Co Tyrone...

* Nottingham has third-highest levels of bus usage in the country

(Photo: Nottingham City Transport said new buses is among the reasons for increased passenger numbers) Nottingham,East Midlands,UK -The Nottingham Post, by Alexander Britton -September 25, 2014: -- Nottingham has the third highest levels of bus usage in the country, new figures have revealed. And the city’s 157 bus journeys per person each year puts it at nearly three times the national average of 51 bus journeys a year, according to the Department for Transport. London topped the table of passenger journeys per head of population with Brighton coming second. The figures also showed the number of bus journeys in the city increased by 100,000 to 48.8 million in 2013/14. The figures for Nottinghamshire showed a drop from 33.6 million to 33 million...

Labels: buses safety, passengers transports industry

BUSES SAFETY * USA: NHTSA

* DC - NHTSA proposes new rules to protect bus passengers in rollover crashes

(Photo: Rescue personnel work on a bus that overturned in Bowling Green, Va.)
Washington,DC,USA -The Detroit News, by David Shepardson -30 Jult 2014: -- The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed new rules to protect passengers in large bus crashes by requiring structural safeguards but won’t require school buses or urban transit buses to get the upgrades or seek significant retrofitting of existing buses... The proposed standard -required by Congress under a 2012 law- would establish performance requirements for motor coaches and large buses... The rules would require space around occupant seating positions to be maintained to afford occupants a survivable space in a crash. They would also require seats, overhead luggage racks, and window glazing to remain attached to their mountings during and after the test and require emergency exits to remain closed during the rollover test and operable after the test... NHTSA plans to unveil rules later requiring anti-rollover technology electronic stability control, which is already required on all cars and light duty trucks...

Labels: buses safety

SAFETY SCHOOL BUSES * USA

* Kentucky - School buses tested for safety

Henderson,Ky,USA -Tristate homepage -24 July 2014: --School is already only weeks away. It's time to get the school buses safe, and ready to roll... Troopers with the Indiana State Police are making sure EVSC schools' buses make the grade before school starts... At the time of this publication troopers had inspected 202 buses and 147 got the green light to move ahead... The annual maintenance takes place at the EVSC garage, downtown close to 8th street... The school corporation is gearing up for their routes, as the year gets back in session on August 11th... You can check bus inspection results, by county and district, for the buses nearest you: Real-time inspection results...

Labels: buses safety

SAFETY * Malaysia - Make it safer to use public vehicles

Public transport like express buses are safer options than private vehicles such as cars and motorcycles

(Video from YouTube, by huangwq -28 June 2009: Rapid Penang has allowed a `sneak preview' of its new `accessible buses'-which it has promised for a while... Rapid will buy 200 of this model for Penang, and later another 1000 for Klang Valley...)

Penang,Malaysia -The Star on line, by S.M. MOHAMED IDRIS: President, CAP -February 13, 2011: -- Based on the statistics of Ops Sikap 23, the Transport Ministry claims that public transport like express buses and trains are safer options than private vehicles such as cars and motorcycles... However, the Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP) is concerned that not enough has been done to ensure the safety of public vehicles, and objects to the use of double-deckers for long-distance travel... The authorities, including Miros, claim that double-deckers are safe... The Transport Minister has announced that there will be no ban on double-deckers unless there is substantial evidence that the vehicles are unsuitable for such routes... With almost every bus company introducing double-deckers, the authorities have not even come up with a mandatory seatbelt ruling for express buses... Another related issue raised by CAP over the last five years was imitation and poor quality vehicle spare parts that could compromise the safety of vehicles... CAP laments the sad state of safety in our public transport and calls on the authorities to focus on saving lives...

Labels: buses safety

AUDIBLE BUSES * USA - Can You Hear Your Bus Now?

A new audible warning system aimed at pedestrians

Washington,DC,USA -The Washington City Paper, by Michael E. Grass -11 Nov 2010: -- Metrobus is testing out a new audible warning system aimed at pedestrians. People around town have been encountering buses with the bilingual warnings in English and Spanish. And already, there's a controversy brewing over whether they're too loud... The anti-Metro blog Unsuck DC Metro posted a recording earlier today of the X8 bus as it maneuvered around some corners at Stanton Park on Capitol Hill, blaring the warning "Pedestrians, bus is turning" ... Metro, which is trying to rehabilitate its image finds itself in a tough position here: Where is the balance between safety and not adding to unwanted audio clutter?... Metro, which has been introducing quieter buses to its fleet, has encountered opposition to noisy buses before ... The initial reaction to the pilot project has been negative—the audible announcement are simply too loud—if you think Unsuck Metro DC's irritable commentarist is representative of the general public... Implementing these types of audible announcements makes sense on a number of levels, especially since it provides pedestrians with visual impairments a warning... But there are quieter residential neighborhoods where many are bound to cry foul when they hear Metrobus' new audible warnings, especially late at night when such noise might carry farther... (Photo from living-in-washingtondc: Metrobus local express)

Labels: buses safety

SAFETY * Ghana - Police to deploy armed officers on long-distance buses

Accra,Ghana -My Joy Ghana News -5 November 2010: -- Armed police officers are to be deployed on long distance buses as part of measures to tackle the growing incidence of highway robbery... The Ashanti Regional Police Command took the decision after discussions with major transport operators in the region... The measure takes immediate effect... It comes in the wake of the raging controversy over allegations of an armed attack and mass rape of passengers on a Tamale-bound passenger bus... Speaking for the Ashanti Regional Police Command, Chief Inspector Mohammed Tanko said passengers will feel safe if they have armed policemen in their buses... Chief Inspector Tanko said the policy will be restricted to armed-robbery-prone highways...

Labels: buses safety

SAFETY * USA - School bus dangers

The National School Bus Safety Week

Cumberland County,PENN,USA -CBS21, by Jaime Meyers -20 Oct 2010: -- Every day students are at risk from people who drive dangerously around school buses. That's why it's National School Bus Safety Week... The thought of your child being in a bus accident is a scary thought for parents, but despite the lack of seat belts, they're a pretty safe place to be... It's generally more dangerous for kids when they're getting on and off the bus. The danger zones are the areas around the bus where the kids are most likely to be hurt. That includes being hit by passing cars or the bus itself, but a few easy habits can help keep kids safe at the bus stop... One area where there's a lot of confusion about passing a bus with flashing lights is major roads like the Carlisle Pike. A turning lane is not enough, drivers must stop unless there is a physical barrier like a concrete median... If safety isn't enough for you, think about what it'll do to your wallet and record if you're caught... Kids should also be warned that if they drop something under the bus , they should alert the bus driver and not try and retrieve it themselves. They should also take off their backpacks and put them on the floor of the bus to ensure the kids are properly protected in the event of a crash...

Labels: buses safety

SAFETY on BUSES * USA - Chattanooga installing cameras on all city buses

To monitor passengers, drivers

Chattanooga,TENN,USA -AP/Chattanooga Times Free Press/ Memphis News/News Channel 3 -October 8, 2010: ... The cost to install the cameras on all 80 buses is $800,000, which came from a $9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation... Tom Dugan, executive director of the Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that perhaps people will think twice about doing something wrong if they know they are being taped... Greg Ball, a bus driver for eight years, said the cameras will provide more security for the driver and the public... (Photo by Tim Barber/Chattanooga Times Free Press - Oct 1, 2010 - CARTA is installing security cameras on its buses. The bus to Alton Park, bus 140, is outfitted during the testing phase.)

Labels: buses safety