I hope that you can assist me with the following freedom of information request, which is made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. 1. How many road traffic accidents involving buses in London were recorded in each of the last five reporting years? 2. How many fatal accidents involving buses were recorded in London in each of the last five reporting years? 3. Referring to the cases of fatal accidents in London in the last five years, in how many cases was tiredness, fatigue or the exhaustion of the bus driver identified as a factor in the accident?

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TfL Ref: FOI-2990-1920

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 8^th January 2020 asking for information about accidents involving London buses.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.

I can confirm that we hold the information you require. Your questions are answered in turn below:

Question 1. How many road traffic accidents involving buses in London were recorded in each of the last five reporting years?

And;

2. How many fatal accidents involving buses were recorded in London in each of the last five reporting years?

Answer: The data we hold is shown in the table below. Note that road traffic collision data for Great Britain is collected in accordance with the “STATS19” national reporting system laid down by the Department for Transport (DfT). Under that system, bus and coach data is combined into a single vehicle category. Therefore, the data below relates to buses and coaches combined. Note that due to changes in the reporting of collisions from 2017 (including the introduction of online self reporting) figures for 2017 onwards should not be directly compared with previous data. It is also important to note that a vehicle may be involved in a collision but that vehicle may not be in direct contact with a casualty.

	Total Collisions	Fatal Collisions
Year
2014	2,100*	11
2015	1,932*	15
2016	1,890*	10
2017	2,144	10
2018	1,793	12

* Not comparable with 2017 and 2018 data due to change in police reporting

You may also find the following published information of interest:

http://content.tfl.gov.uk/casualties-in-greater-london-2017.pdf - a fact sheet providing a summary and analysis of personal injury road traffic collisions and casualties in Greater London in 2017.

http://content.tfl.gov.uk/casualties-in-greater-london-2018.pdf - as above, for 2018.

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/safety-and-security/road-safety/london-collision-map - the TfL “Road Collision Map”.

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/bus-safety-data – TfL’s “Road Safety” data pages, which includes provisional data for 2019.

Question 3. Referring to the cases of fatal accidents in London in the last five years, in how many cases was tiredness, fatigue or the exhaustion of the bus driver identified as a factor in the accident?

Answer: Fatigue, as a contributory factor, was not assigned to a bus or coach in police reported collisions that resulted in fatal injury between 2014 and 2018. Contributory factors are the opinion of the reporting officer at the time of the collision and up to six factors can be assigned to each participant involved (fatigue is identified in STATS19 collision data as contributory factor 503).

You may also be interested in the Bus Driver Fatigue report that is published on the TfL website here - http://content.tfl.gov.uk/bus-driver-fatigue-report.pdf - along with the measures which TfL has set out to tackle fatigue, which includes a new £500,000 fund for bus operators to establish the most effective interventions, published here: https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2019/august/tfl-sets-out-measures-to-tackle-bus-driver-fatigue

Note further that TfL has adopted a Vision Zero approach to road safety to eliminate deaths on or by a bus by 2030 and serious injuries on our roads by 2041. This includes the introduction of the Bus Safety Standard which incorporates new technologies such as intelligent speed assistance, and safer designs such as better mirrors and anti-slip floors. Further advances in safety technologies like autonomous emergency braking will be added when they are ready at future intervals. This is supported by high-tech training of all bus drivers in the fleet such as Destination Zero which looks at the most prevalent risks to vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists, and the safest options to take under these circumstances.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for any reason, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.

Yours sincerely,

David Wells

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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