Assessing factors affecting safety violations of bus rapid transit drivers in the Greater Jakarta Area

Abstract

Instead of human factors, organization and environmental factors were the primary cause of traffic accidents in public transportation. This study confirmed the causal relationships between safety variables that influenced the safety violation carried out by professional bus rapid transit (BRT) drivers in the Greater Jakarta Area based on sufficient theoretical and empirical support. The influences of latent safety variables that indicated quality, such as safety climate, safety awareness, safety behavior, safety motivation, safety participation, safety knowledge, and safety violation, were examined using a questionnaire. 391 Transjakarta drivers participated from both a private operator company and a local government-owned operator company. The response rate for this study was 78.2%. A partial least square – structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach was conducted to test the hypothetical model. The results suggested that improving the safety climate would increase the motivation of the driver to pursue safety. Increased safety motivation would improve safety behavior, and finally, would reduce the tendency for a safety violation. Increasing the safety climate would also increase safety knowledge. Safety knowledge would make drivers more likely to participate and care for safety improvement, and finally, safety violations would be reduced. The moderating effect of a safety climate had a significant causal relationship on safety violations. Thus, the difference in the treatment of drivers by BRT operator companies in Jakarta influenced the potential safety violations by the drivers.