SAFETY OF WHEELCHAIR OCCUPANTS IN SCHEDULED SERVICE BUSES AND IN TRANSPORT VEHICLES FOR THE DISABLED

This paper presents three German studies of how to improve the safety of wheelchair occupants, travelling in private and public transport vehicles designed for disabled people. The areas covered by the studies were: (1) restraint systems for wheelchairs and wheelchair drivers in motor vehicles transporting disabled people; (2) wheelchairs in braked transport vehicles; and (3) passenger-friendly transit buses meeting the needs of disabled people. In the first study, knowledge, acquired from eight crash tests, was used to develop an improved restraint system for wheelchairs and wheelchair occupants, enabling safe travel conditions. In the second study, 66 braking tests were conducted on manually braked wheelchairs, using a dummy as occupant, to simulate the braking of a bus. The sliding and tipping conditions of manually operated and electric wheelchairs were investigated. The research in the third study concentrated on a normal transit bus, where passengers have no special restraint system, to determine the frequency of specific operational states. Measurements were made on manually and electrically operated wheelchairs in various positions in the bus, using a dummy as occupant.