Documentation and risk assessment of bus-stops used for school bussing : quality assurance with focus on traffic safety

In Trollhättan municipality approximately 700 school bus stops are in service. To ensure high quality of the performance of school bus operations, with focus on traffic safety, it was decided to conduct a survey of bus stops including assessments of risks. This master thesis aims to identify the factors affecting road safety at bus stops and pedestrian connections, and to conduct an inventory and analysis of selected sites in Trollhättan municipality. The work also aims to show examples of how risk assessment should be performed in future studies. A risk analysis model provided by the Swedish Transport Administration is supplemented and used in a field study. The risk assessment is based on, inter alia, traffic flow, visibility distance, lighting, speed of traffic and the presence of bus shelter. A total number of 93 bus stops and 228 pedestrian connections are examined during the field study. The result shows that the connections are generally a larger traffic safety problem than the bus stops. The risk analysis model uses both objective and subjective assessments. Applying subjective assessments to supplement objective is beneficial, but there are some difficulties in making subjective judgments. Those require that the evaluator possess much knowledge and experience in traffic safety and it is difficult to always be consistent when setting subjective ratings. The group recommends the city of Trollhättan to proceed with field testing of bus stops and pedestrian connections, and to regularly conduct surveys of passenger’s experiences and views on safety. Furthermore it is recommended that the bus drivers carry out a risk analysis from their perspective