In work package 5 of VIRTUAL, human body models are developed to study non-collision injuries in public transport. The ultimate goal is to find ways to prevent such injuries or make them less serious. Work package 6 will conduct cost-benefit analyses of innovative safety systems. If WP5 succeeds in finding ways to reduce falls among public transport passengers or make them less serious, one needs to know the expected number of such falls in order to estimate the benefits.
The main objective of this paper was to provide an estimate of the expected number of injured passengers per year for a public transport vehicle producing, for example, one million passenger kilometres per year. It is found that the expected number of injured passengers for such a vehicle will be about 0.5 to 0.8 per year.
This paper, written by Rune Elvik, reviews and summarises studies of the risk of non-collision injuries to public transport passengers:
Risk of non-collision injuries to public transport passengers: Synthesis of evidence from eleven studies