Bus & Coach

Safety in the Bus & Coach Industry

PSV transport and passenger-carrying vehicles such as buses, coaches and minibuses provide an essential service for today’s commuters and leisure travellers.

The safety of passengers, employees and members of the public is essential, but with vehicles operating in busy and congested urban environments, preventing incidents with cyclists or other vulnerable road users is also vital.

 

Due to vehicle sizes and positions of drivers, buses and coaches have extensive blind spots. This lack of visibility is a contributory factor to incidents and greatly increases the risk of a collision. Being able to prevent incidents and deter fraudulent insurance claims and vandalism is important to the safety of passengers, staff and other road users and the reliability and efficiency of the service.

Which Products Do I Need?

Brigade’s safety solutions are suitable for most commercial vehicles and machines.
To help you select, we have created a series of guides featuring the safety products we recommend for the most common applications.

Select below to view the recommended Brigade products for each vehicle.

Problems Within the Bus & Coach Industry

Incidents and problems in the bus & coach industry include:

  • Bus / coach and cyclist collisions due to blind spots
  • Damage to vehicles when manoeuvring due to rear overhang
  • Damage to vehicles from street signs
  • Manoeuvring in bus stations, coach interchanges, depots and garages where reversing can be difficult and dangerous
  • Vandalism of buses and coaches by passengers and attacks on members of the public, drivers and staff
  • Damage caused by parking in close proximity to other bus / coaches

How Brigade Can Help

By investing in Brigade’s safety solutions you can improve worker and public safety. Benefits include:

  • All-round visibility for safer, more efficient operation
  • Reduced accidents
  • Reduced vehicle downtime due to accidents
  • Vandalism deterrent
  • Vehicle and passenger security surveillance
  • False claim prevention
  • Reduced noise complaints
  • Meet health and safety requirements
  • Strengthen companies reputation in the community

Case Study - Luxury Coach Operator, Centaur chooses Backeye®360

Kent based luxury Coach Operator, Centaur, needed a solution to vehicle damage due to the rear swing. They installed Brigade Electronics’ Backeye®360, and discovered it could not only save them money but also save lives.

With a fleet of 100 minibuses and coaches, Centaur has seen an increase of challenges when driving in Central London. Congestion and vulnerable road users require drivers to be very skilled when manoeuvring around the city. For Centaur, the biggest problem is with the blind spot due to the rear swing.

Matt Sims, Managing Director of Centaur explains: ‘Judging the point of the rear corners, in relation to traffic behind and to one side, is the most difficult part of driving a big vehicle in my view, and the area most prone to collision and damage on a coach.’

With Backeye®360 set to take over the current generation of camera monitor systems, Matt concludes..

…“In my honest opinion, it’s absolutely going to save lives and with four cyclist and HGV fatalities this year in London, the sooner it becomes mandatory the better.  While I’m not advocating it, you could, quite safely, drive without any mirrors if you had to.”