Improving occupant safety in coach rollover

Coach rollover is one of the most hazardous accident type for coach occupants. Risk of fatalities in rollover is about five times higher than in any other coach accident types. This paper presents an analysis of the problem and countermeasures to reduce the severity of these accidents. First, some data regarding severity and type of injuries, based on in depth studies carried out by the INSIA during last years, are presented. The passenger influence in the coach rollover kinematics and dynamics is studied with an analytical model describing the ECE Regulation 66 test procedure. In a later stage, full rollover models including occupants have been developed to analyse injury causes and to assess the effectiveness of seatbelts usage in injury mitigation. These models have been validated with component and full-scale tests and have been used both, to estimate expected injury reduction, and also to check the most probably injury mechanism observed in real life accidents.