Safer Buses and Bus Services with TRL

High-quality bus safety incident data, including near miss, collision and workforce H&S data, forms a critical foundation for future policymaking and evaluation needs. Working with either existing client systems or TRL’s proprietary iMAAP system, TRL can advise on the necessary data collection requirements to ensure valuable incident information is collected using standardised best-practices and utilised by fleet operators and transport authorities to affect change.

Benefits: Enables your prioritisation of bus safety investments for where they’re most needed, maximising impact and return on your investment. This evidence-led approach will reduce your costs by avoiding ineffective or unnecessary safety measures.

Expert-led in-depth investigations for serious, high-value, incidents are necessary to understand root causes and to determine liability, negligence and causation. TRL’s team of industry-leading forensic collision investigators conduct independent collision investigations for fleet operators and transport authorities, while also providing training courses that develop the capabilities of organisations intending to conduct incident investigations.

Benefits: Supports your decision-making on future risk management approaches to prevent recurring incidents and reduce future operational/insurance costs. Our independence enhances the credibility of the findings from investigations, particularly legal proceedings or insurance claims, to protect you from reputational harm and support fair, evidence-based, outcomes.

Robust, Green Book-compliant, business cases are required to justify bus safety investments using evidence-based collision data and OPEX/CAPEX costs for policy packages involving multiple safety measures. TRL’s proprietary clustered cost-benefit analysis (CCBA) approach supports the conduct of economic appraisals that avoid double-counting the benefits and costs of a scheme to progressively implement bus safety measures over multiple years

Benefits: Ensures your limited resources are cost-effectively spent on high-impact interventions, supporting accurate and efficient investment decisions that provide quantified returns both operationally and in terms of societal value.

Safer bus vehicle specifications set clear functional design and performance standards to reduce the risks and severity of collisions and can be implemented via bus route contracting processes. TRL’s work for TfL on the BSS set out and implemented evidence-based bus vehicle specifications, which UK and global bus manufacturers now meet with their latest generation of buses. Future retrofit schemes for older bus stock and specifications for new buses can be tailored to the needs of different transport authorities based on our learnings from these experiences.

Benefits: Translates learnings from our previous work with TfL to tailor the development of bus vehicle specifications or bus retrofit schemes that align with your regional priorities and improve bus safety outcomes through a streamlined, cost-effective, approach.

Working with Women in Bus and Coach (WiBC) and TfL, TRL are developing guidance to improve inclusivity in the design of the bus driver working environment. This has focused on the design of the bus cab and driver ergonomics to support safe, comfortable and equitable driving conditions, whilst also creating a space that provides a sense of identity and source of pride for bus drivers.

Benefits: Reduces the risk and costs associated with collisions and occupational injuries, whilst creating a more inspirational working environment for your drivers in turn enhancing their wellbeing and improving staff retention and recruitment from under-represented communities

Safer operational speeds involve setting and enforcing speed limits that reduce the likelihood and severity of bus collisions, while also creating an operational culture to discourage behaviours that result in riskier driving practices. TRL are able to advise on safe speed limits, the implementation of Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) technologies that integrate with local speed limit maps and GNSS and bus driver training programmes based on telematics data feedback, while also ensuring contractual and timetabling demands do not result in increased speeding by late bus services.

Benefits: Appropriate bus operational speeds will significantly reduce the severity and likelihood of collisions involving buses on your network without the need for substantial investment in road safety infrastructure schemes, providing a cost-efficient way to improve bus safety.

Implementing safer roads infrastructure for buses involves designing, treating and maintaining roads, junctions and roadside infrastructure to minimise conflicts with other road users. As the UK’s iRAP Centre of Excellence, TRL’s accredited road safety auditors have developed bus-specific assessments that evaluate the business case for implementing features such as segregated bus lanes, clearer signage, safer pedestrian crossings and bridge strike mitigations, among others.

Benefits: Ensures that the future design, treatment and maintenance of your highways consider the specific safety needs of buses based on TRL’s evidence-based road safety audit for buses to prevent and mitigate the impact of bus collisions

Safe and accessible bus interchanges can be designed to reduce risks (both actual and perceived) for bus passengers, cyclists, pedestrians and other road users. Working with Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) and CIHT, TRL is developing a ‘quality bus stop’ standard that sets out evidence-based design advice for implementing improvements such as better lighting, clear sightlines, safe boarding areas, improved information provision and well-managed pedestrian flow.

Benefits: Prevents bus safety incidents from occurring, improves customer perceptions of safety and personal security and enhances the customer experience by ensuring buses are more accessible – in turn positively impacting bus ridership for your region.

Safer and inclusive bus customer journeys focus on reducing risks during their trips, whilst also ensuring all customers – including disabled people, older adults and those with sensory or cognitive impairments – can travel safely, comfortably and independently. At TRL we work on projects enhancing the entire customer journey, from pre-journey information to riding and alighting from the bus. Examples include anti-slip flooring, considerate bus driver training, accessible announcements and automated priority wheelchair space occupancy detection.

Benefits: Cost-effectively prevents bus safety incidents from occurring with your most at-risk customers and enhances the customer experience while journeying on your buses via inclusive designs and behavioural considerations – positively impacting bus ridership for your region.

Effective management of bus driver fatigue and welfare is critical to the safe operation of buses. TRL supported TfL trial the fitment of fatigue detection technology (FDT) on c.400 buses with the implementation of best-practice fatigue management processes for three operators. Operational improvements include embedding no-blame FDT event monitoring/response processes, driver mentoring programmes, rostering optimisation, driver training and diet/sleep health initiatives.

Benefits: Reduces the risks and costs associated with fatigue-related bus safety incidents on your network via evidenced reductions in fatigue events, while proactive fatigue/welfare management systems will enhance your staff retention and reduce long-term occupational health costs.

Ensuring bus driver fitness to drive involves conducting early and regular health screening assessments, whilst also performing just cause, post-incident and randomised testing of drivers for alcohol or drug consumption. TRL have advised on improving these processes to better target chronic conditions or driver states that could impair their judgement, reaction time or awareness, thus ensuring drivers are physically and mentally fit for duty.

Benefits: Early detection and intervention of driver inhibition reduces the risk of health-related or substance-related incidents, lowering collision rates and costs associated with inhibited drivers operating buses.