Estimated societal costs of a hierarchical measures approach to enhanced school transportation safety at bus stops on roads with high speed limits

Abstract

Purpose Most school bus related injury events in Sweden take place when the child is outside the bus. In order to enhance their safety, the societal costs of four different measures applied on "bus stops" on high speed roads were investigated. Methods: From a door-to-door perspective, a measure hierarchy, comprising the four existing measures, viz.: Rerouting using the current operating vehicle, New construction, Rerouting using a different operating vehicle, Speed reduction in the vicinity of the "bus stop" was applied. Results: By allocating 7.7 € per child per school day, almost nine out of ten children's transportation safety may substantially be enhanced, simply by rerouting the current operating vehicle or using alternative operating vehicles. Conclusions: In the investigated municipality it was feasible to enhance school transportation safety for children by implementing cheap and alternative measures. © 2010 The Author(s).