School Bus Safety in Australia

Executive Summary

see also:  Media Release of 25/05/2001

Following community concern over school bus incidents resulting in the death of or serious injury to schoolchildren, the Australian Transport Council (ATC) requested Austroads to:

• review current practice and research in relation to school bus safety; and
• to identify new or proven safety measures that may be used as part of a National approach to school bus safety.

As part of the review extensive consultation was undertaken with key internal and external stakeholders and consensus sought with regard to a National School Bus Safety Action Plan.

Based on available data, the number of children killed or seriously injured nationally associated with bus travel during school commuting times has steadily fallen from an estimated 14 fatalities and 190 hospitalisations in 1990, to an estimated 4 fatalities and 100 hospitalisations in 1998. 

Notwithstanding the reductions achieved, across the country about 9 children are seriously injured each month. 

Most of these bus-related casualties involve children struck by vehicles while crossing the road after leaving the bus. In three years of national data, 2 out of 24 child fatalities associated with school buses were passengers in a crash-involved bus.

This report addresses bus-related pedestrian casualties, as well as safety for bus occupants.

To ensure that school bus safety is recognised as a road safety priority nationally, this report proposes a National School Bus Safety Action Plan to complement the National Road Safety Strategy 2001 - 2010.  The Plan is detailed in Appendix A of this Summary Report.

The key objective of the National School Bus Safety Action Plan is to build on the gains made by jurisdictions across Australia and reduce the total annual number of child fatalities associated with school bus travel to zero by the year 2005. This will be achieved through the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of a number of integrated safety initiatives to reduce the number of fatalities and injuries to children and young people when travelling on or moving around school buses.

The School Bus Safety Action Plan is intended as a guide to States and Territories. It provides a set of short to long term initiatives expected to improve school bus safety. The manner and degree to which each measure is applied by each jurisdiction will depend on programs currently delivered and the level of applicability within each State and Territory. State and Territory governments and agencies will also have to consider the resource impact of applying short and long-term initiatives to improve school bus safety under the School Bus Safety Action Plan.  The Plan also identifies:

• the deliverers of each of the safety measures, and the key agency responsible for implementation
• monitoring and performance measures to ensure optimal safety benefits are derived.
• Components of the School Bus Safety Action Plan comprise a range of current and new best practice initiatives that focus on:
• improving the behaviours of children, parents, teachers, child carers, bus drivers and operators, and the general community
• improvements to school buses and their design
• improvements to the road and its environment
• other motorists.

To refine and facilitate the implementation of the School Bus Safety Action Plan, and to monitor the effectiveness of the program and identify future crash trends, the review also recommended the establishment of a School Bus Safety Advisory Group.  The review further recommended an expansion of the national reporting system pertaining to school bus crashes. The key details of these initiatives are summarised below.

School Bus Safety Advisory Group

The establishment of a School Bus Safety Advisory Group convened under the Austroads Road Safety Program is recommended.  The membership of such an advisory group could include representatives from each jurisdiction and possibly other stakeholder groups.

One of the major tasks of the Advisory Group would be to prioritise the action items listed in the Action Plan. It is recommended that priority be assigned for action items relating to the implementation of school bus safety programs, to the evaluation of current initiatives and to the need for research into new developments.

Overall, the role of the Advisory Group would be:

• to monitor implementation of school bus safety initiatives / programs and identify best practice
• to identify new developments in school bus safety
• to identify gaps in our knowledge of the effectiveness of bus safety measures and recommend future school bus safety research
• to provide feedback to the Austroads Road Safety Program in relation to school bus safety across Australia.

Expand the national reporting system to collect data on crashes involving school buses

To better understand the magnitude and characteristics of crashes associated with school children using buses, it is recommended that additional data be collected by jurisdictions. Minimum information required should include:

• intention of pedestrian movements (ie. the pedestrian was crossing the road to board a bus when the crash occurred)
• the origin and destination of pedestrian trips (ie. travelling home from school, travelling for extra curricula activities, etc.
• data on secondary vehicles not directly involved in the pedestrian impacts (eg presence of a bus, other vehicles).

It is also recommended that additional information pertaining to the existence or absence of safety measures implemented within the vicinity of a crash involving children in relation to school bus travel be collected.  For example, information on the presence of flashing lights, use of signs or school bus markings, the implementation of speed zones around schools, and the proximity of bus stops and pedestrian crossings to the crash scene would be of particular value in assessing the factors that led to the crash.  Additionally, it would be useful to know whether a parent/guardian was present during the incident - in particular, whether a parent/guardian was waiting for the child on the other side of the road from the bus - and whether the child was moving in front of or behind the bus.

The availability of the information will assist in better targetting school bus safety initiatives and programs. This will in turn optimise the benefits that may be derived from resources expended in this area of road safety.

Magnitude of the Problem

The number of children killed while crossing the road to board or after alighting from a bus on their way to or from school was less than 10 in each of the three years for which detailed data were available (ie. 1992, 1994 and 1996)[1]. This makes up approximately half of the child pedestrians killed during school commuting times in these years 53% (20/38).

Although crossing the road before or after school bus travel is clearly the major area of risk, there is also risk associated with bus travel itself.  The estimation of this part of the problem is much harder due to the much smaller numbers involved.  Four such fatalities were identified in the three years for which detailed data were available two of these were cases in which the child was caught in the bus doors and the other two occurred when the bus was involved in a collision with another vehicle[2].

The small number of cases on which these fatality estimates are based precludes separate estimation within jurisdictions and anything more than a broad assessment of numerical trends over time.  The detailed bus-related crash data for 1992, 1994 and 1996 was supplemented by child pedestrian fatality and injury estimates (during school commuting times) for 1990 and 1998.  This analysis revealed that the number of child pedestrians killed and hospitalised, as a result of crashes associated with bus travel occurring during school commuting times, has decreased consistently and substantially since 1990 (ie. from an estimated 14 fatalities and 190 hospitalisations in 1990, to an estimated 4 fatalities and 100 hospitalisations in 1998 - a reduction in serious injury of about 50%)[3].  However, the extent to which this reduction is due to new school bus safety measures compared with general improvements to road safety is not clear.

Notwithstanding the reductions achieved, across the country about 9 children are seriously injured each month. 

Characteristics of Fatalities Associated with School Bus Travel

Leaving aside two children killed as a result of collisions between a bus and a secondary vehicle, detailed investigation of the other 22 child fatalities associated with school buses was conducted. This was completed using the fatality files of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (previously the Federal Office of Road Safety) for 1992, 1994 and 1996.  The following crash characteristics were identified:

• 19 fatalities occurred as the child alighted from the bus and then was struck when attempting to cross the road. In only 1 case was the child killed while attempting to cross the road to board the bus;
• 2 fatalities occurred when the child had attempted to alight from the bus and their leg became stuck in the door of the bus without this being seen by the driver (in both cases the child was of primary school age).
• 17 fatalities involved primary school aged children;
• 18 fatalities occurred at the end of the school day;
• 13 fatalities occurred on roads speed zoned greater than 60 km/h;
• 19 fatalities occurred within a mid-block location, away from an intersection;
• half of the fatalities occurred on roads in urban areas, with the remaining half on roads in rural areas; and
• except for one case, the child crossing the road was unaccompanied.

Despite the small number of fatal crashes identified as being related to school bus travel, certain features were more common than others.  The typical crash scenario involved a child on his or her way home from school in the afternoon.  Although it is difficult to determine the timing of the sequence of events from the crash records, in most cases the incident occurred immediately after the child had alighted the bus and, in all cases, was hit by another vehicle while attempting to cross the road - presumably while the bus was still in the vicinity.  In most cases an adult did not accompany the child.  The majority of incidents occurred on two-way undivided roads, at mid-block locations, in both urban and rural areas and, more often, on roads with speed limits of 60 km/h or more.  While actual vehicle speed was not provided, based on detailed fatality crash information available, neither excessive speed nor alcohol consumption were associated with the fatal crashes identified in this investigation.

[1] Changes in the coding frame and changes to the nature of the compilation process over time meant that crashes of interest could only be identified for the three most recent compilations (1992,1994 and 1996).

[2] These latter 2 crashes have not been included in the crash analysis presented in this investigation.

[3] These estimates are based on statistical advice provided by Covance - detailed in Section 2 of the Technical Report.

Last Updated: 9 June, 2005