Abstract

Buses are amongst the safest means of transportation in Germany. Serious accidents involving these vehicles are isolated cases, but they are immediately noticeable in the statistics. In addition to these accidents, buses are more frequently involved in minor accidents, especially in built-up areas, which only result in property damage. The last comprehensive analysis of bus accidents is several years old. Accidents involving a bus are examined more closely in order to highlight possible key aspects and also to be able to look at accidents with property damage in more detail.

Based on three different databases of DEKRA Automobil GmbH, specific findings are to be gained from accidents involving buses over the past ten years. Each of these databases provides different options due to their different datasets. However, no database on its own offers a complete analysis of the accident from the pre-collision phase to the collision and ultimately to the claims settlement. Ultimately, results from these three different databases shall help to analyse this process completely and to compare accidents in Germany with international bus accidents.

The Accident Research Database is based on nationwide accident reconstruction reports. In addition to the basic data on the vehicles involved, this database allows conclusions to be drawn about the pre-collision phase and the collision itself. About 100 accidents are available here from the last ten years.

Another DEKRA database containing accidents involving busses is the Damage Database, which is based on nationwide damage assessments. This database contains detailed data on the bus involved and its damage or repair costs. However, information about the collision and the moments before it is almost completely absent. Around 15,000 damage reports are available for this kind of analysis.

The last database to be considered is the International Bus Accident Database of DEKRA Accident Research. This database includes information from the media about bus accidents that have happened worldwide. The data that can be obtained from the individual accidents is significantly less detailed than, for example, from expert reports. However, one will hardly find accidents that only result in material damage, since such events are usually not worth press releases. Still, with this database one has the possibility to look at the accident occurrence in an international comparison or to identify possible key aspects in individual countries. About 1500 cases are available in this database.

Initial analyses show that visibility impairments such as darkness or bad weather conditions play rather a subordinate role. Serious bus accidents in which people are killed or seriously injured occur primarily in built-up areas. As expected, most accidents with minor property damage involve city buses, which mainly move at low speeds in built-up areas and sometimes hit objects or other vehicles during their journeys. Internationally, too, most accidents occur in built-up areas and during daylight.