Self-Braking Buses

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Dear Transport for London,
As a bus driver in London I am concerned about the news that self-braking buses may be introduced in London. Could you reassure bus drivers that full testing has been done on buses that are full of passengers in heavy traffic to ensure that people will not be injured by the bus braking too hard without warning. London is heavily congested and vehicles/cycles pull in front of us continuously and I am concerned that buses could end up like pogo sticks.

Yours faithfully,

Joanne Harris

07914 475141

FOI, Transport for London

Dear Ms Harris

Thank you for your email. As your enquiry does not constitute a request for recorded information as defined within the Freedom of Information Act, your email has been forwarded to our Customer Experience Team who will be able to assist you further. They will respond to you in due course.

Yours sincerely

FOI Case Management Team
Transport for London

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Customerservice, Transport for London

[1]Transport for London
Transport
for London
Ref: 12694761

27 December

Good afternoon Joanne

Thank you for getting in touch with us about the self-braking buses that
you’ve seen on the news. I apologise for the delay in getting back to you.

I appreciate your cause for concern, having seen on the news that new,
self-braking buses could be introduced to the bus network in London,
particularly as you mention you’re a bus driver yourself.

I’ve raised your comments and concerns with our Bus Design & Safety team,
where they’ll look into this further and your comments have been taken on
board. I’m still awaiting further feedback in relation to this, but please
rest assure that as soon as I’m able to provide you with more information,
I’ll be in touch. I appreciate your patience whilst we look into this.

In the meantime, if there's anything else I can help you with, please
reply to this email. Alternatively, you can call us on 0343 222 1234 and
we'll be happy to help you.

Wishing you a happy and prosperous new year!

Kind regards

Lauren Bastable
Customer Service Adviser
Transport for London Customer Services

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[2]Mayor of London - Every Journey Matters
Transport for London (TfL) will use the personal information submitted on
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References

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2. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/
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Customerservice, Transport for London

[1]Transport for London
Transport
for London
Ref: 12694761

3 January 2019

Hi Joanne

I hope you’re well and had a lovely Christmas.

You recently got in touch with us, raising your concerns about the news
that self-braking buses may be introduced on our bus network, whereby, I
sent you an email advising that I’d been in touch with our Bus Design &
Safety team and would get back in touch as soon as I had any further
information.

The Bus Design & Safety team have since got back to me and provided more
information about the Advanced Emergency Braking (AEB) systems. However,
these systems haven’t yet been introduced to our network.

The AEB systems use forward looking sensors such as Lidar, Radar, Camera,
or fusions of data from more than one sensor, to identify any risk of
imminent collision. It will typically, first warn the driver of the risk,
and if the driver doesn’t act, then it will apply braking automatically to
avoid collision or to reduce the collision speed, and therefore, the
potential for an injury.

It will also warn and intervene in an emergency, in the last few seconds
before an impact and provides braking much later than during normal
driving. Systems will be available that respond in front-to-rear
collisions with other vehicles and frontal collisions with pedestrians
crossing the road, or cyclists travelling more slowly ahead of the bus.

AEB standards have previously been developed for HGV’s and cars, but buses
pose a unique additional challenge because of the multiple passengers that
are seated or unbelted, or those who might be standing. AEB has been
proven effective in other vehicle types, in both front-to-rear vehicle
collisions and pedestrian collisions. Analysis strongly suggests that it
will provide considerable benefits when fitted to buses too.

However, on very rare occasions, an AEB system can activate when it didn’t
need to, a false positive, because it incorrectly identified a collision
threat. For all vehicle types, this creates a risk of unnecessary
collision with following vehicles, but for a bus, each false activation
also carries a risk that it could cause passenger injury.

Considerable attention has, therefore, been paid to modelling the balance
between collision avoidance and the risk of injury to passenger on board.
This includes consideration of the vulnerable road user, casualty savings,
the changes in casualties amongst passengers on board, if a collision is
prevented, and if the risk of additional causalities resulting from false
activations.

Testing has been used to develop a test track-based assessment procedure,
adapted from Euro NCAP’s AEO tests for cars. In addition, the test
procedures include some innovative tests, designed to discourage false
positives that may arise from less robustly developed systems; although it
will never be possible to test against all possible situations, because
driving circumstances are so varied and complex.

It also requires manufacturers to show us additional evidence, to
demonstrate the false activation rate will be sufficiently low, to ensure
substantial net casualty benefits and requires the AEB system to make data
available to on-board recording systems, to allow close monitoring of
performance in service.

As always, if there's anything else I can help you with, please reply to
this email. Alternatively, you can call us on 0343 222 1234 and we'll be
happy to help you.

Wishing you a happy and prosperous new year.

Kind regards

Lauren Bastable
Customer Service Adviser
Transport for London Customer Services

If you wish to reply directly to this email, please click on the reply
button on your toolbar. Please do not alter or delete the subject line as
this may result in a delay responding to your email.
We aim to reply to all emails within ten working days.
[2]Mayor of London - Every Journey Matters
Transport for London (TfL) will use the personal information submitted on
this form to process your feedback and provide you with the information or
services you have requested. We may need to share your information with
our service providers, associated organisations and agents for these
purposes. For further information please see our Privacy Policy.

show quoted sections

 

References

Visible links
2. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/
3. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/