In Safety Recommendation H-97-29, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) asks the U.S. Department of Transportation to collect accident data, including pedestrian accident data, involving school children riding on transit buses. The Safety Recommendation specifically names the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), the Community Transportation Association of America, the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services, and the American Public Transit Association. The Safety Recommendation was made because current data are not adequate to analyze the relative operational safety of pupils transported on school buses, transit buses, and vans. Further, The NTSB is concerned about whether school children on public transit buses are afforded operational safety equivalent to school children riding on school buses, and the NTSB has asked the parties to determine the most appropriate means to ensure such safety. This project will encompass only the data-related elements of the NTSB recommendation; the parties can use the results to independently or collaboratively address further appropriate action.
There are three national sources of fatality and injury data on buses: the National Transit Data Base, maintained by the FTA; the Fatal Analysis Reporting System (FARS), maintained by the National Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA); and The National Automotive Sampling System/General Estimate System (NASS/GES), also maintained by NHTSA. As the NTSB has noted, none of these accident-reporting systems fully capture pupil transportation accident data.
Three categories of accident-related injuries are reported by bus transit systems to the FTA's National Transit Data Base: patron, employees, and other. Specific data on injuries to school children are not delineated.
FARS compiles data on all fatal accidents based on police accident reports and provides very good data on yellow school bus accidents, because all fatalities in the area surrounding a yellow school bus must be reported. However, for pupil fatalities involving transit buses, the data are not so thorough. For instance, FARS contains striking-vehicle data for pedestrian fatalities, but does not necessarily link pedestrian fatalities occurring near a vehicle to that vehicle. A pupil fatality that occurred crossing the street after leaving a transit bus or van would not necessarily reference the transit vehicle, so it would not be classified as transit related. Also, FARS data do not indicate whether the operator of a vehicle is a private individual or an agency like a transit agency. This creates difficulty identifying pupil fatalities involving vans that may be operating in transit or paratransit service.
Fewer data are available on injuries than on fatalities. The NASS/GES contains injury data collected by a sampling process. Because the incidence of pupil-related injuries on yellow school buses, transit buses, or vans is low in the total accident population, this data source is unlikely to provide reliable data on pupil injuries. Other state and local data sources may exist, but they are not readily available for a national analysis.
Finally, exposure data are available, but these data are not linked to the accident data. There is a need to assemble exposure data, relate them to accident data, and report pupil fatality and injury rates while traveling on, boarding, alighting, or walking near transit buses, school buses, and vans.
The objectives of this project were to (1) assess the adequacy of existing data to address the safety of pupils traveling on, boarding, alighting, or walking near transit buses, school buses, and vans (2) develop methods to collect meaningful and practical fatality, injury, and exposure data for the conditions described in Objective 1, and (3) develop best available estimates of exposure, fatalities, and injuries for pupils being transported on buses to school, from school, or on school-related trips during normal school hours.
Status: The revised final report has been received. It is available upon request.
