Abstract Manager

School buses are the safest vehicles to transport children to and from school but recent innovations in crash avoidance technologies have the potential to make them even safer. These technologies can reduce the severity of a crash or avoid it entirely. Other features can help a driver by increasing visibility or alert the driver of an urgent safety issue to protect vulnerable road users around the vehicle. Recently, Transport Canada started to evaluate optional advanced crash avoidance safety systems available on school buses to provide recommendations on procedures and requirements to inform standards development. The test methodologies used for these evaluations were based on existing protocols but adapted for each application. School buses from two different manufacturers were used to evaluate automatic emergency braking (AEB), surround cameras, extended stop arm, infraction camera, forward collision (FCW), lane departure, and exit warning systems. Under standard conditions, AEB and FCW systems performed as expected but the trend suggest a degradation of performance under adverse weather conditions. The visible areas provided by individual camera views represented an improvement over the standard mirrors of the school bus and combined with the driver’s direct vision limited the blind zones around the vehicle. Overall quality of the video images recorded with the infraction camera during on-road evaluation was excellent. License plates were readable regardless of the speed (city or highway) and lateral distance (first or second adjacent lane) unless excessive dirt (as often observed during winter conditions) was present. However, the use of rear facing camera only was found to be limited as it can only record plates for vehicles travelling in the opposite direction in locations where front license are not required. Exit warning system provided audible warnings to the driver and students outside the bus at least 2 seconds prior to collision. The system was found to perform well under various environmental conditions. The findings of this study show great potential to assist drivers in mitigating the risk of collisions with other vehicles and to detect vulnerable road users around the school bus.