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Bus safety statistics now available online in latest TfL open data move

Posted: 23 June 2014 | Transport for London | No comments yet

Transport for London is reinforcing its commitment to further improving transparency for customers and stakeholders by publishing detailed bus safety data on its website on a quarterly basis…

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Transport for London (TfL) is reinforcing its commitment to further improving transparency for customers and stakeholders by publishing detailed bus safety data on its website on a quarterly basis.

This follows analysis of thousands of requests received under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) where TfL identified the most regularly asked for information. It also follows calls from London Assembly Members to publish more data on safety across the capital’s bus network.

The latest bus safety data, covering the period from January to March 2014, is now available on TfL’s website and gives details of incidents on London’s bus network resulting in a fatality, or injury requiring hospital attendance. The figures are broken down by borough, bus operator and bus route – and give details of the person’s age and gender, the nature of the incident and type of road user involved (for example, bus passenger, bus driver, pedestrian, cyclist).

The data shows that there were two fatalities and 283 bus-related injuries which required hospital attendance during this period. In that time, there were around 600 million journeys on the capital’s bus network and London buses travelled more than 100 million kilometres in passenger service. There are 8,700 buses in the capital’s fleet and around 6.5 million bus journeys are made every day across 700 different bus routes.

The figures sit alongside TfL’s long-standing annual reporting on the number of people killed or seriously injured (KSI) on the capital’s roads. The recently published figures for 2013 show the number of cyclists and pedestrians killed or seriously injured in a collision involving a bus or coach in the capital fell by 38 per cent and 22 per cent respectively compared to 2012, with pedestrian KSIs almost halving and cyclist KSIs falling by 40 per cent in the last six years.

Leon Daniels, TfL’s Managing Director for Surface Transport, said: “Casualties involving buses have fallen dramatically in recent years and continue to do so. Bus trips account for over a quarter of road journeys in London but buses and coaches are involved in only eight per cent of road collisions resulting in an injury.

“But any casualty is one too many and it is vital that we continue to make London’s streets as safe as possible. As we continue to make the bus network even safer we are making as much data as possible available so that the most up-to-date information is readily available and our progress can be easily observed.”

One of TfL’s top priorities is to reduce by 40 per cent the number of people killed or seriously injured on London’s roads by 2020, and a huge range of measures are being taken to achieve the target, including trials of optical and radar-based detection equipment on the capital’s buses this summer that could heighten bus drivers’ awareness of pedestrians and cyclists near their vehicles. If successful, the equipment could be rolled out across all of London’s 8,700 buses.

London’s bus drivers already have the highest standards of training anywhere in the UK and TfL works closely with the bus companies to ensure all drivers are trained to operate safely on London’s roads.

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