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88JRRD, Volume 45, Number 1, 2008the Canadian Traffic Accident Information Data System(TRAID), that does include data unique to transit buses.Note that this approach assumes that the ratio of transitbuses to intercity buses in the GES is similar to the ratioof transit buses to intercity buses in the Canadian TRAIDdatabase. Table 1 summarizes the number and type ofreported bus damage events in 1999 in Canada from theTRIAD and between 1999 and 2001 in the United Statesfrom the GES.Transit buses comprised 72.7 percent of the CanadianTRAID “Severe (repair) demolished” damage categorytotal (32/44 0.727) (Table 1). Assuming a similar proportion exists for the corresponding GES damage category yields an annual average of 430 severely damagedtransit buses (0.727 592) in the United States. Giventhe large number of buses with unknown damage, theactual number of severely damaged buses is likely higher.Another reported GES element, “Manner of leavingscene,” is also related to crash damage and has fewer datapoints coded as “Unknown;” for example, the GES database records that 24,480 buses were driven from thecrash scene, 1,308 were towed because of damage (inaddition to serious damage, buses may be towed becauseof minor problems, i.e., broken headlight or windshield),197 were towed but not because of damage, 117 wereabandoned, and 163 were unknown. Assuming the same0.727 ratio of transit buses to intercity buses for this dataelement yields an annual estimate of 951 (0.727 1,308)transit buses that were known to be towed because ofdamage in the United States. In summary, the GES dataelements “Damage severity” and “Manner of leavingscene” suggest that annually between 430 and 951 transitbuses were substantially damaged in crashes between1999 and 2001 in the United States.Fatality-Producing Events Aboard Transit BusesThe FARS attempts to record every U.S. motor vehicle event that involves a fatality of a vehicle occupant ornonmotorist [18]. Table 2 describes the crash and noncrash events fatal to transit bus drivers and passengersbetween 1997 and 2001.Tables 3 and 4 summarize the number of fatalitiesand the event types. A total of nine drivers and sevenonboard passengers were killed in 560 events. Becauseevery FARS case must involve a fatality, this findingindicates that the great majority of fatalities occurred inthe collision partner vehicle or involved a pedestrian.Drivers were more likely to die than passengersdespite the average estimated passenger-to-driver ratio of12:1. This ratio was not derived systematically, but itapproximates onboard counts in various transportationstudies [19]. The driver station is apparently more dangerous than the passenger area despite the common availability of occupant restraint belts (which were not alwaysused as evidenced by the four cases in which an unbelteddriver was ejected). In all but one case, the driver’s fatalinjuries occurred in a frontal or side crash. In five of eightcases, the damage to the bus was severe and required thatthe bus be towed from the scene. The percent of severelydamaged buses in crash events that involved a driverfatality (5/8 62.5%) is much higher than the 4.1 percentcalculated for general transit bus crashes (severe damage/[none minor moderate severe] 592/15,056 3.9%) (Table 1).Table 1.Number and severity of bus damage events in Canada in 1999 from Traffic Accident Information Data System (TRAID) database and UnitedStates from 1999 to 2001 from General Estimates System (GES) database.Year/Database1999 TRAID(Canada)1999–2001 GES(United States)†*TRAID†Bus ,111Damage Event Category (No.)*SevereSuperficial Moderate Unsafe(Repair) 167121,065238446,0685,285592Unknown Not 426,266categories collapsed to approximate corresponding GES categories, which are displayed in brackets.GES counts are U.S. national estimates based on sample of events (National Automotive Sampling System). Data presented as mean/year.

89SHAW. Large transit vehicle accidents and protection for wheelchair ridersTable 2.Fatality Analysis Reporting System database 1997 to 2001: Transit bus case event descriptions. Database was searched for all fatalities of eitherdrivers or passengers that occurred aboard transit bus in either crash or noncrash events.YearCase No.199728506011Driver or Passenger FatalityUnrestrained driver ejected after bus hit curb and rolled over. Severe bus deformation required towing.Unrestrained driver killed after bus hit on right side. Severe bus deformation required towing.Driver drowned.1998226142287-year-old female fell from stopped bus.87-year-old female fatally injured because of braking.1999385170973998611911184Driver killed when bus hit tree in frontal crash. Severe bus deformation required towing.Passenger fell or jumped from bus.Restrained driver died in head-on crash. Minor deformation but bus was towed.Unrestrained driver ejected in crash that caused moderate bus damage.Unrestrained driver ejected in oblique frontal collision. Severe bus deformation required towing. Driverrun over by bus.Passenger killed in frontal crash. Severe bus deformation required towing.2000136285-year-old wheelchair rider killed when bus negotiated curve at 76 km/h.2001858Unrestrained driver ejected through left-side window after collision with another bus. Moderate busdamage.60-year-old male died in frontal crash with tree. Moderate bus damage.62-year-old female extricated after bus hit curb then slid sideways into building.Driver killed in head-on impact with bridge abutment after preimpact braking. Severe bus deformationrequired towing.2241119760Table 3.Fatality Analysis Reporting System database 1997 to 2001: Transit bus case fatalities.No. Onboard FatalitiesYear19971998199920002001TotalMean/YrNo. FatalCrashes*109115106127103560112DriversAll Cases3040291.8Crashes2040281.6PassengersAll CasesCrashes0020211022731.40.6*Fatal crashes include those in which fatally injured was in collision partner vehicle or was pedestrian. One bus per case was involved, with two exceptions in whichtwo buses were involved.Only three of the seven passenger deaths occurredduring crashes, two frontal and one side. Bus crash damage was coded as “Severe” in two cases and “Moderate”in the third. The side-impact event required passengerextrication, which suggests that the bus wall may haveintruded into the passenger space. The other four passenger fatalities occurred in noncontact events, two of whichinvolved braking or turning. The sole fatality of a wheel-chair rider, an 85-year-old female, was attributed to a busexecuting a turn at relatively high speed.Of the eleven driver and passenger fatalities thatinvolved crashes, five of the crashes involved immovableobjects or a heavy vehicle (Table 2, cases 385, 858, 224,1119, and 760). One of the driver fatalities involvedimpact with a bridge abutment, one a frontal impact witha tree, and another an impact with another bus. In one of

90JRRD, Volume 45, Number 1, 2008Table 4.Fatality Analysis Reporting System database 1997 to 2001: Transitbus case fatalities and contact type.Contact TypeFrontalSideRearOther/UnknownNoncontact s210047the passenger cases, the bus slid sideways into a building,in another, the front of the bus hit a tree.Regional DatabasesIn an attempt to gather additional information ontransit bus events, I reviewed three regional databases:the Ontario MOT, the NYSDOT, and the WSTIP.Ontario Ministry of Transportation DatabaseThe Ontario MOT database provided a wealth of specific information concerning transit bus events. TheOntario MOT database, like the general Canadian TRAIDdatabase, uniquely identifies municipal transit busesrather than including them in an “Other bus” category asin the GES database. Therefore, like the TRAID, I usedthe Ontario MOT to help characterize U.S. transit busevents. This approach assumes that regionally reportedevents are representative of those in the United States asa whole, an assumption that was not tested in this study.Other advantages of the Ontario MOT database are that itcaptures 62 percent of the Canadian transit bus events, itis well documented, and the staff provide generous technical assistance. The 137-field database includes transitbus events that resulted in either injury or property damage 1,000 Canadian and police-reported informationon the event, the vehicle, and involved persons. Theevents are not investigated nor are crashes reconstructed.The Ministry staff provided data on transit bus eventsfrom 1999 to 2001.Event type, bus speed, vehicle damage, and level ofpersonal injury were the main parameters extracted. TheAppendix (available online only at http://www.rehab.research.va.gov) defines the data elements used in theanalyses. Assuming that g level is related to bus damageand the severity and frequency of occupant injury, Iexamined these parameters to identify events that mostlikely involved g levels that exceed those encounteredduring abrupt braking, turning, and accelerating.The 1999 to 2001 database review involved 4,292events and 61,529 bus passengers. The majority of theevents involved only property damage and/or injury toother vehicle occupants or pedestrians. Only 580 of theseevents involved an injury to a bus passenger. A total of844 passengers were injured. Sixty-six percent of theinjuries were minimal; only 0.6 percent were major(requiring hospital admission) (Table 5).Of the 844 bus passengers injured, the type of eventwas known for 751 (Table 5). For 49 percent of the passengers, the bus made contact with another vehicle orfixed object. For 51 percent of the passengers, the eventdid not involve contact. Most of the noncontact eventsare assumed to have involved bus motion from eithernormal or emergency maneuvers. Injury severity was notrelated to bus contact (Figure 2). All the major injuriesoccurred in noncontact events. For those events thatinvolved contact, the amount of damage to the bus wasunrelated to injury severity unless the bus was describedas “Demolished” (Figure 3).Table 6 summarizes the five contact events in whichthe bus was considered “Demolished” (damaged so severelyTable 5.Ontario Ministry of Transportation database 1999 to 2001: Injury severity and event type for injured passengers (n 844). Database contained atotal of 4,292 events and 61,529 passengers in all events.*EventInjury Typen (%)MinimalMinorMajorFatalTotal554 (66)285 (34)5 (0.6)0 (0)844 (100)type unknown for 93 of 844 injured passengers.Event Type 0723950751*

91SHAW. Large transit vehicle accidents and protection for wheelchair ridersFigure 2.Ontario Ministry of Transportation database 1999 to 2001: % ofpassengers injured in contact and noncontact events and severity oftheir injuries.as to be uneconomical to repair). In these events, nearlyall the passengers aboard were injured (an average of92%). In events in which less bus damage occurred, thepercent of injured passengers decreased (Figure 4). Infour of the five events, frontal contact was the primaryimpact. In one event that involved a bus being hit fromthe right side, one injured passenger was partially ejected.The events involving contact are further characterizedin Figures 5 and 6. Visual inspection of the results suggeststhat injury severity is not strongly associated with estimatedpreevent bus speed (Figure 5). Three of the five majorinjuries occurred at speeds of 5 km/h. The percent ofminor versus minimal injuries increased when speedsexceeded 30 km/h.In cases in which 1 passenger was injured, impactsto the front of the bus were the most common (Figure 6).Collectively, frontal impacts comprised 57 percent of allimpacts, rear impacts 24 percent, and left- and right-sideimpacts 19 percent. The single most heavily contactedarea was the left front corner, which accounted for 25 percent of the impacts.The following is a summary of Ontario MOT database findings:1. The Ontario MOT database review provided additionalevidence of transit bus safety. No onboard fatalitiesand only five major injuries were reported in the 3 yearsstudied.2. Injury frequency and severity were very similar forcontact versus noncontact events, such as vehiclemaneuvers.3. Bus damage was associated with injury for only fivecases in which the bus was considered “Demolished.”Most of the passengers were injured. Four of these fivecases involved impacts to the front of the bus.Figure 3.Ontario Ministry of Transportation database 1999 to 2001: Relationshipbetween passenger injury severity and bus damage for contact events.4. Most (57%) injury-producing contacts were to thefront of the bus.5. Preevent bus speed was not strongly associated withinjury.New York State Department of TransportationDatabaseThe NYSDOT is the only state DOT that systematically records and investigates transit bus events. In contrast to the Ontario MOT database review, I did not haveaccess to the underlying data but relied on NYSDOT personnel to conduct database searches on my behalf. Iexplained the need to identify severe transit bus eventsand requested cases that involved bus crashes andresulted in bus occupant injuries and deaths. Table 7summarizes the NYSDOT response, which is a samplingof case reports selected by an experienced staff memberand is not intended to be a census of such events.Three cases did not involve a crash but an abrupt evasive maneuver. Braking was reported in three of the noncrash events for which insufficient details were availableto determine if the passenger injuries were sustained duringthe preimpact braking or the subsequent crash. Althoughtwo drivers died, no passengers were killed or sufferedinjuries severe enough to require hospital admission.Summary of NYSDOT database findings:1. No passengers were killed or suffered injuries severeenough to require hospital admission.

92JRRD, Volume 45, Number 1, 2008Table 6.Ontario Ministry of Transportation database 1999 to 2001: Contact events involving a demolished bus.CollisionSpeedBus StruckBus SpeedBusVehicleBus ContactPartnerNo. BusLimitVehicle/(km/h)MotionStruck sengersInjured (%)Comments500Stopped—YesFrontVehicle3662 adult femaleshad minimalinjuries.5010GoingstraightYes—Left e1292All 11 adultshad minor injuries.5050GoingstraightYes—FrontCurb tree*51002 adults hadminimal and 3minor injuries.705TurningleftYesYesRight frontVehicle pole fence11001 adult, partiallyejected, hadminor injuries.2 adult maleshad minimalinjuries.Tree, shrub, or stump.4. Five of the seven events involved abrupt braking; intwo cases (5606 and 6102), the braking preceded thecrash.Figure 4.Ontario Ministry of Transportation database 1999 to 2001: % of 580contact events in which 1 passenger was injured as function of %injured passengers ([injured/uninjured] 100) and bus damage; e.g.,in 64% of events, % of injured passengers was 10 when bus damagewas described as “None or Light.”2. Of the four crash events, two involved impacts to thefront of the bus, one to the side, and one involved aside impact followed by a frontal impact.3. Avoidance maneuvers caused injuries in several noncrash cases. In one case (5606), preimpact brakingcaused a passenger to fall from the vehicle seat.Washington State Transit Insurance Pool DatabaseThe WSTIP maintains a database of claims for 19transit properties in the Northwest, including one transitorganization in Ohio. In contrast to the other databasereviews, this review included both fixed-route transitbuses and on-demand van-based buses (e.g., paratransitvans). WSTIP generously provided data for 1,333 injuryand property claims recorded between 1996 and 2003. Ofthe 1,333 cases, only 162 (12%) involved a crash: 147claims involved a fixed-route bus crash, 15 involved avan crash, and 53 involved wheelchair riders, althoughnone of the more costly wheelchair rider claims involveda transit bus crash (Table 8).Although the database does not indicate whether theclaim event monetary totals were due to property damageor injury or a combination thereof, the WSTIP staff suggested that claims 10,000 usually indicate an injurywas involved. The location of the injured claimant wasnot recorded, and the claimant could have been in a collision partner vehicle. Twenty-nine fixed-route buses and

93SHAW. Large transit vehicle accidents and protection for wheelchair ridersFigure 5.Ontario Ministry of Transportation database 1999 to 2001: % of passengers injured in both contact and noncontact events, injury severity, andestimated preevent bus speed.one van were involved in claims 9,500 (Tables 8 and 9).The majority of these claims involved a bus crash (17/29).WSTIP provided detailed information for the mostsevere crash that involved a fixed-route transit bus whosedriver passed out from an apparent heart attack in March1999. The bus, with 36 passengers onboard, hit concretebarriers with its left and right front corners injuring 22passengers and the driver. The driver and 13 passengerswere taken to area hospitals. Passengers interviewed atthe hospital described “a scene of bodies flying aroundand a lot of chaos.” The passengers, suffering no seriousinjuries, were all treated and released. The front of thebus was extensively damaged (Figure 7). Estimated busrepair costs were 41,000 excluding replacement parts.Eleven cases did not involve a crash. Six of thesecases (four nonwheelchair riders and two wheelchair riders) involved braking.Table 10 outlines the four wheelchair rider incidents(two that did not involve a crash and two that did) and theassociated claim costs. The average wheelchair riderclaim cost for claims 9,500 was 65,496, which is60 percent higher than that of the average claim for nonwheelchair riders ( 41,059). All four of the noncrashwheelchair events were among the 10 most costly eventtypes despite having only one or two claimants per event(Table 11). The ratio of wheelchair rider claims 9,500to other rider claims (4/29 0.14) is much higher thanthe 0.0024 ratio of wheelchair riders to general ridersestimated for Seattle, a city with a large percentage ofwheelchair riders [15]. The ratio of all wheelchair riderclaims to other rider claims (53/1,333 0.04) is alsomuch higher than this estimated ratio of wheelchair ridersto general riders.The following is a summary of WSTIP databasefindings:1. During the study period, 12 percent of the property andinjury claims involved a crash. A transit bus wasinvolved in 147 of the crashes and a van or paratransitvehicle in 15.2. A severe crash, as evidenced by extensive bus damageand passengers being thrown out of their seats, injured22 of the 36 passengers but caused no serious injuries.3. The four wheelchair rider claims 9,500 occurredaboard a paratransit vehicle and did not involve acrash. The average wheelchair rider claim event monetary total was higher than that for

(MOT), the Washington State Transit Insurance Pool (WSTIP), and the New York State DOT (NYSDOT). Because much of the data comprised small sample sizes from individual transit providers, I was unable to use statis-tical data analysis methods or validate assumptions that regional data was representative of the United States as a whole.