Research on bus passenger safety in frontal impacts 2001-06-0210

Guidelines with regard to the body strength of buses have been drawn up in Japan. We now pass to the second step in research to assure the greater safety of bus crews and passengers by launching a study on further reduction of collision injuries to bus occupants. As a way to reduce such passenger injuries, our focus is the optimization of energy absorption, the arrangement of equipment on the passenger seat back, the seat frame construction, mounting and so on. The study was conducted using an experimental method together with FEM computer simulation.

The findings from a sled impact test simulating a seat in a bus in a frontal collision are stated as follows.

1.Further consideration should be given to the present conventional ELR two-point seat belt.

2.One way to reduce passenger injury is to optimize the space between seats.

This report proposes measures to reduce passenger injuries based on the experimental approach employed and introduces a computer simulation model and the like now under development.