Analysis of school bus accidents in China

Abstract

The safety issues of the school bus have become a widely discussed topic in China, due to the substantial growth of school bus accidents during the recent years. The characteristics and causes of school bus accidents have been widely investigated, and many research results have been adopted to improve the standards of school busses in western countries. However, the empirical study is still insufficient in China due to the limited dataset of the school bus accidents. Are the characteristics and causes of Chinese school bus accidents similar to those in western countries? Can we learn from western countries’ experience directly? In this article, 148 school bus accident cases are collected and analyzed. The temporal and spatial distributions of these events are investigated, and the results show that most of the common characteristics and causes are similar to the experience of western countries, but there are some special temporal and spatial characteristics due to the unique situation in China; for example, the special festivals and regional economic levels are different from western countries. In order to reduce the accidents, school buses need special traffic service in key periods, the school buses should also be made more recognizable, and all the drivers on the road should be educated to give more attention to the school bus. Measures should also be taken to restrict the usage of minibuses as school buses.