WASHINGTON The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration quietly revealed last month it has embarked on an ambitious program to investigate the safety of motorcoaches, including a series of crash tests and bus rollovers, to evaluate a variety of passenger safety factors.

The program and tests are likely to result in new federal safety standards for over-the-road buses.

Matthew Daecher, president of Daecher Consulting Group, a leading coach industry safety consulting firm, said the document issued by NHTSA is a sign the agency is finally going to start long-awaited research and testing.

"The concentration of multiple fatality crash events in the last few years has brought attention and political pressure for them to do some evaluation, which they have been reluctant to undertake historically due to the cost involved and relatively small fatality counts," said Daecher.

Robert J. Forman, retired safety director at Trailways and Greyhound, agrees. He says the federal government has never conducted bus crash tests because every bus it crashes will cost $300,000-$400,000 and because the number of motorcoach fatalities each year is miniscule when compared to the deaths resulting from auto and truck crashes.

NHTSA officials see 40,000 car-truck deaths annually, versus 8-12 in buses. "Where are they going to put their resources?" Forman asks. He says the only bus crash testing that has been done in the past 50 years was by General Motors of PD-4106s and by the Canadian government of school buses.

According to the program blue print issued by NHTSA, the federal agency will zero in on developing standards -- if they are needed -- for seat and lap belts, seat anchors, roof strength, window types and glazing, and emergency evacuation procedures.

To study the value of various types of passenger restraint systems and related hardware, the safety agency will conduct controlled bus crashes, as well as sled tests, with unbelted, lap-belted and lap/shoulder-belted instrumented crash dummies.

The research also is expected to consider alternatives to seat belts, such as interior airbags.

"Fortunately or unfortunately, however you look at it, the motorcoach industry doesnt get much attention because it is such a safe industry," said NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson. "But we know that there always is room for improvement."

He said the agency report was the result of a regular review of transportation safety issues and will serve as a road map for the agency to follow over the next few years as it works to make motorcoach travel even safer than it is now.

Some of the research already has started and more will get under way before the end of the year, said Tyson, adding that most of it should be completed in 2008 and 2009.

Industry reaction

The new NHTSA initiative was welcomed by industry executives and safety experts, many of whom have been critical of the agency for not responding to safety issues in a timely manner.

"While UMA applauds NHTSAs initiative to finally begin long-overdue crash testing of motorcoaches, we are concerned that elements of the approach may ignore the tremendous safety components that currently exist in motorcoaches," said Ken Presley, vice president of the United Motorcoach Association.

"While one fatality is always one too many, we believe it is critical that NHTSA avoid compromising existing safety features and that any new standards only enhance and improve current safety standards."

Daecher also noted that the agency document appeared to discount the potential of technology affecting crash and fire events and their outcomes.

"Technology can be more readily retro-fitted to coaches; any design changes through testing will only affect new coaches," he said.

Many of the safety issues NHTSA said it will look at were among strong recommendations made to the agency by the National Transportation Safety Board following investigations it has made during the past decade, including a 1998 bus crash in Pennsylvania that killed 7 people and the 2005 motorcoach fire that left 23 elderly passengers dead and several others seriously injured as they were being evacuated from Hurricane Rita.

Seat belts overseas

The NHTSA blue print notes that while passenger restraints have been required on motorcoaches in Australia since 1994, and in Europe since 1998, their standards differ greatly, and there is no information available as to which is safer and more appropriate for use in the United States.

Its crash tests, NHTSA suggested, should provide the missing information that will help determine the best design performance requirements for seat belt assemblies and seat anchorages.

Daecher cautioned that the seat belt issue not only will be difficult to address because of the lack of current data, but because seat belts might not be the best answer for reducing fatalities and injuries in motorcoach crashes.

Crash testing to develop standards for seat belts and seat and seat belt anchors is costly and complicated because it has to involve a wide rage of crash scenarios, including the use of seat belts, lap and shoulder belts, no restraints at all, as well as different types of crashes, rollovers and the like, said Daecher.

He emphasized that there is significant doubt among bus safety experts as to whether seat belt installation may actually reduce fatalities and injuries in many crash scenarios except rollovers. He suggested the studies of roof and window strength would likely be even more beneficial to passenger safety.

"Statistics obviously indicate that (passenger) retention in the bus during crash events will significantly reduce fatalities by over 50 percent," he stressed. "Therefore, window composition and anchorage and roof structure stiffness are the most important issues which I think can be tested within reason."

Rollover tests

NHTSA said in its report the agency will evaluate current roof strength testing procedures that include buses being rolled onto their sides and roofs to help determine if new roof crush performance requirements need to be established for motorcoaches.

Such an evaluation, it said, would shed light on concerns of passengers being ejected through windows that either shatter or pop out during a crash.

"Roof deformation may affect the structural integrity surrounding the effectiveness in preventing occupant ejection," the report noted.

Daecher holds that if retention can be improved using a window and roof strength approach, then seat belts would not necessarily prove beneficial.

The report also said new studies and tests of interior and exterior materials for flammability and smoke emissions will be conducted with an eye toward possibly developing more stringent standards for motorcoaches.

Additionally, it said studies and possibly some testing will be done on emergency exits and reviews will be made of existing requirements for emergency signage and illumination.

Crash prevention?

Equipment designed to help prevent crashes and fires also drew some attention in the report, but were not listed as priorities and in need of immediate action.

Instead, it said the agency will monitor existing devices and new technologies that have the potential to improve motorcoach safety. Among them are devices that warn drivers when they begin to drift out of their lanes or are in danger of having a collision, and equipment that alerts them of possible wheel or brake fires.

Electronic data recorders also were mentioned by regulators who noted the agency has been studying the devices on trucks for more than a year and when that work is completed, their use on motorcoaches will be considered.

"The agency has decided that attention to the priority strategies identified (in the report) is where the focus needs to be directed to have the most immediate impact on motorcoach safety," the report stated.

Selection of the priorities was based on several factors, including size of the population that would benefit from an improvement, likelihood that any action would be successful, resources and time needed to carry out the research, NTSB recommendations, and the anticipated cost of implementing any new requirements.