Modeling and Analysis of Urban and Rural Bus Accidents

The bus is one of the oldest modes of public transportation. Two of the main priorities for any public transport system are therefore the safety of buses and that of the traffic around them. Contemporary safety literature pays too little attention to modeling the severity of bus crashes. This study therefore sets out to identify factors affecting the severity of accidents involving buses، either in urban or rural locations. The study refers to police reports of bus accidents، employing the Ordered Logit Model to analyze the influence of such parameters as the time of the accident، driver characteristics and road conditions. Our results find that improved driver experience results in lower crash severity on both urban and rural roads. Other factors، such as night driving، drivers over 60 years-old، collisions involving pedestrians or multiple vehicles، speeding and ‘running’ red lights were all associated with higher crash severity. For crashes occurring on rural roads، the additional factors included the spring and summer lifestyle، young bus drivers، traffic law violations، use of alcohol، drugs، drowsiness، buses rolling over through high speed cornering، drivers failing to anticipate dangers ahead، wet pavements and deceptively sharp corners – which all serve to increase the severity of accidents involving buses. It is hoped that these results can assist policy makers in their efforts to promote public transport safety in future.