Guided buses: not enough regard for safety?

[ThirteenArches]

I see the Cambridge guided bus system is in the news twice today: for being fined £6 million over earlier deaths, and for a collision with a fire engine which has put 11 people in hospital.

BBC News: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwynrrv27p2o, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrg65y3107o

The earlier thread was closed after apparently petering out into a lets-hate-cyclists morass. But should it be seriously considered whether the safety standards applied are sufficient? Should they be treated more like light rail than street buses? Do drivers drop their guard when the interaction with other motorised road users is taken away? Should signalling etc be better? Woulkd this make them less economically attractive?

 

[stevieinselby]

I see the Cambridge guided bus system is in the news twice today: for being fined £6 million over earlier deaths, and for a collision with a fire engine which has put 11 people in hospital.

BBC News: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwynrrv27p2o, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrg65y3107o

The earlier thread was closed after apparently petering out into a lets-hate-cyclists morass. But should it be seriously considered whether the safety standards applied are sufficient? Should they be treated more like light rail than street buses? Do drivers drop their guard when the interaction with other motorised road users is taken away? Should signalling etc be better? Woulkd this make them less economically attractive?

From my initial reading of the report, it sounds like the buses were probably on the busway and crossing the junction with a green light, and a fire engine on the cross-street went through a red light and collided with them.

If that is the case (and I emphasise if because I acknowledge it is pure speculation on my part) then the fact that it is a busway doesn't appear to be hugely relevant, if the fire engine entered the junction against the lights and without checking that the road was clear then it would appear that that is where the fault lies.

 

[The exile]

From my initial reading of the report, it sounds like the buses were probably on the busway and crossing the junction with a green light, and a fire engine on the cross-street went through a red light and collided with them.

If that is the case (and I emphasise if because I acknowledge it is pure speculation on my part) then the fact that it is a busway doesn't appear to be hugely relevant, if the fire engine entered the junction against the lights and without checking that the road was clear then it would appear that that is where the fault lies.

Again prefaced with a big IF: Wherever the direct “fault” lies - it doesn’t answer the question as to whether a driver gets condition into different thought patterns when on a segregated route - in the same way as a car driver on their daily commute “knows” that that Motorway warning sign has been lit for the last 3 weeks - until they discover to their cost that it really means it today!

 

[higthomas]

I find it somewhat annoying that for some reason the busway is subject to normal health and safety rules, hence these fines and tribunals, whereas if it were a normal road nothing would happen.

Imagine if councils were fined for every crash on every road, they'd all be bankrupt in months.

(I think the right approach is somewhere in between; not treating the busway so harshly, but also actually caring about road collisions.)

 

[AM9]

I find it somewhat annoying that for some reason the busway is subject to normal health and safety rules, hence these fines and tribunals, whereas if it were a normal road nothing would happen.

Imagine if councils were fined for every crash on every road, they'd all be bankrupt in months.

(I think the right approach is somewhere in between; not treating the busway so harshly, but also actually caring about road collisions.)

"normal health and safety rules" are not harsh, - just there to provide a safe environment for people. The fact that keeping to the rules seems to be inconvenient for some transport operators is no reason for a half-baked attempt at respecting the safety of others.

 

[higthomas]

"normal health and safety rules" are not harsh, - just there to provide a safe environment for people. The fact that keeping to the rules seems to be inconvenient for some transport operators is no reason for a half-baked attempt at respecting the safety of others.

My annoyance is not particularly with them, it's with the "uneven playing field" which makes train and guided buses far more expensive to build and operate compared to roads, which despite thousands of deaths a year see very little attention on the danger they pose. Which perversely results in more roads being built causing more danger!

I wouldn't mind regular health and safety being imposed on roads, it would be a useful wake up call, although wouldn't last long.

 

[AM9]

My annoyance is not particularly with them, it's with the "uneven playing field" which makes train and guided buses far more expensive to build and operate compared to roads, which despite thousands of deaths a year see very little attention on the danger they pose. Which perversely results in more roads being built causing more danger!

I wouldn't mind regular health and safety being imposed on roads, it would be a useful wake up call, although wouldn't last long.

Guided busways are low-cost alternatives to conventional tramways and as such are subject to similar risks. If there are incursions from other vehicles against the authorisation indicated on signage, any investigations are dealt with appropriately, however if the driver's attention is insufficinet to take reasonable prevention measures, then they are subject to the same penalties as any other road user. Although the safety laws are not applied equally for all roasdd users, (for both logistical and cultural reasons), relaxing the rules on one section of users is not a credible solution.

 

[edwin_m]

Guided busways are low-cost alternatives to conventional tramways and as such are subject to similar risks.

Partly true, though there is usually no electrification for example. However, tramways fall under the Rail and Other Guided Transport Systems (ROGS) regulations and guided buses don't.

 

[Falcon1200]

Imagine if councils were fined for every crash on every road, they'd all be bankrupt in months.

The £6 million fine was imposed after 3 (tragic) deaths on the guided busway in 6 years; How many people were killed elsewhere on Cambridgeshire's roads in the same period? And who was fined as a result?

 

[stuu]

As others have said, it does seem utterly perverse that the council was fined in the cases of the people who fell into the path of a guided bus, when virtually every inch of road in the country is exactly the same and there would have been no action. No one has suggested fencing all the pavements yet that is what is being done here, where the bus is going to be in a more predictable path than any normal vehicle. Crazy

 

[The exile]

The £6 million fine was imposed after 3 (tragic) deaths on the guided busway in 6 years; How many people were killed elsewhere on Cambridgeshire's roads in the same period? And who was fined as a result?

I’m sure that if the deaths were due to the responsible body’s failure to maintain the road, then a prosecution would follow. Unlike the guided busway, public roads are rights of way so different laws apply. I suspect that prosecutions could quite possibly follow if (say) a National Trust buggy was involved in an accident on a property’s driveway - even if the buggy was being operated by a 3rd party.

 

[Bletchleyite]

As others have said, it does seem utterly perverse that the council was fined in the cases of the people who fell into the path of a guided bus, when virtually every inch of road in the country is exactly the same and there would have been no action. No one has suggested fencing all the pavements yet that is what is being done here, where the bus is going to be in a more predictable path than any normal vehicle. Crazy

There were design/safety issues on a certain specific part of the Busway. The Council could well end up in trouble if a road was done similarly; a road might in that situation have pedestrian fencing.

The Council would be unlikely to be fined if someone fell under a bus because they were walking close to the track on a wide, uncongested part of the path.

 

[Dwarfer1979]

There were design/safety issues on a certain specific part of the Busway. The Council could well end up in trouble if a road was done similarly; a road might in that situation have pedestrian fencing.

The Council would be unlikely to be fined if someone fell under a bus because they were walking close to the track on a wide, uncongested part of the path.

Except that is exactly what has happened.

One of the deaths was a person crossing the busway at a marked crossing on a long straight section in the countryside but as it was in a rural area away from houses (& I think at a nature reserve) there was little to no street lighting, no material difference to someone crossing a road but the council would never have been prosecuted if someone was hit whilst crossing an unlit country road between two footpaths. The other two I think occurred on the same section south of the railway station which has a very wide footpath seperated from the busway by a raised curb (the only difference from a road where there is a drop from the curb) and whilst busier than the path outside the city I have never seen it more busy than much narrower footpaths alongside roads in the city centre the bus will be about to pass along, the design issue appears to have simply been there wasn't a fence between the footpath & busway so if someone got too close to the busway and tripped over the curb they could fall onto the busway. Road fencing only tends to be used to stop people taking short cuts across junctions/roads and funnel them to controlled crossings, on the section of Busway with the issue of fencing the only thing the other side of the Busway is the railway so there is no reason to cross.

Whatever your views on whether we should have a higher view of safety on roads, and the UK is already one of the safest countries in the world for road fatalities, it is clear the Busways are being held to a higher standard than normal roads and none of these would have resulted in a prosecution for the road authority on a standard road and quite possibly no prosecution for anyone since I'm not sure the drivers were prosecuted which would indicate that it was considered there was nothing they could do to avoid what happened. Right or wrong it is clear the busway is being held to a higher standard than roads - on this latest accident the only question is whether the fire engine had their siren going to alert crossing traffic given it would appear they were going through a red light as the bus driver would have been approaching a junction with a green light, there is no more reason to expect to have to give way to a vehicle here than any other traffic light controlled junction where you have the green light.

 

[ThirteenArches]

On a road, the bus driver would be expected (and expect) to take precautions on observing a pedestrian; slow down and prepare to manoeuvre to avoid them. The driver has no leeway to manoeuvre on a guided system, and the pedestrian may well have not taken this into consideration. After all, vehicles in general don't drive into people at the pavement's edge. The BBC photo shows the only edging as the raised concrete trackway, and the bus occupying the track practically completely. Without a clear demarcation ( a pedestrian may not have appreciated how much margin to allow for the bus to pass. And having a reserved trackway, the driver may not have slowed sufficiently to allow for this. Without a RAIB- style inquiry, the details available are scant and leave little information to learn lessons from. It would be useful to know more about the "numerous near- misses and accidents".

 

[Trainbike46]

The "design fault" in that section isn't really that there isn't fencing, it is that the path is right next to the busway, while along the rest of the route there is a grassy verge.

I do agree the busway is being held to a higher standard than regular streets, which is unfair. But that isn't really news, basically every mode of transport is held to a higher safety standard than the 'standard' road network.

Installing fencing will increase safety on this stretch for limited cost and as far as I can see, no issues, so I do believe that is a good idea.

On a road, the bus driver would be expected (and expect) to take precautions on observing a pedestrian; slow down and prepare to manoeuvre to avoid them. The driver has no leeway to manoeuvre on a guided system, and the pedestrian may well have not taken this into consideration. After all, vehicles in general don't drive into people at the pavement's edge. The BBC photo shows the only edging as the raised concrete trackway, and the bus occupying the track practically completely. Without a clear demarcation ( a pedestrian may not have appreciated how much margin to allow for the bus to pass. And having a reserved trackway, the driver may not have slowed sufficiently to allow for this. Without a RAIB- style inquiry, the details available are scant and leave little information to learn lessons from. It would be useful to know more about the "numerous near- misses and accidents".

At least some of those near-misses were people overtaking other pedestrians by stepping into the busway, something which would be resolved by fencing

 

[buslad1988]

I think a lot of the problem has stemmed from the fact that previous to the busway being in existence, the pathway also wasn’t there and they hadn’t envisaged it becoming as popular as it is (hence why they’d probably never dreamt it would need significant fencing) to clearly segregate the two areas; especially on the more rural sections.

Common sense plays into it as you’d expect those walking on (a typically wide) pavement to keep a distance from the busway - after all buses will be flying past; that’s the whole point of the busway!

A member of the public did state in the BBC news report that a high proportion of the pathway users, be it cyclists or pedestrians are also wearing headphones and are oblivious to their surroundings. I don’t see how the council can take responsibility for that. A lot of it comes down to today’s blame culture and people not wanting to own their mistakes. Accidents happen after all, any injuries/deaths are always tragic whatever the circumstances.

If health and safety was to go over the top you could argue it simply safer to close the footpath altogether and have it purely as a busway (like you would fence off a railway).

With regard to the recent collision with a fire engine; from reports it seems the the traffic light signals at that junction do change/phase very quickly. If a bus is travelling towards a green light the chances are it’s going to maintain speed to travel through (especially if the traffic lights are set up to turn green for approaching buses). IF the bus driver couldn’t hear or see (looks as though it’s blind from left/right) the fire engine on blue lights coming towards it the driver wouldn’t have thought it necessary to slow down. Likewise the fire engine wouldn’t have seen the buses approaching either. It’s all very wrong place, wrong time kind of stuff. Maybe the busway should have proper level crossing barriers across road junctions like railways do?

For all the bad press it gets the Cambridge busway does sometimes appear cursed! Any arguments for future additional ones being built from the mayor are going to be controversial due to the track record of the existing system.

 

[renegademaster]

Pedestrian fatalities have happened on the tram systems every so often and nobody seems to care much. Lot of the concern about the busways just seems thinly veiled nimbyism, Tramlink or Metrolink doesn't get this because the residents generally support the concept. Note that the busway goes much further into the countryside than the other 2

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Apr 2025 ==

has no leeway to manoeuvre on a guided system,

On the otherhand that is also a safety feature. The driver can't accidently vere onto the pavement and kill a pedestrian in a lapse of concentration

 

[higthomas]

The £6 million fine was imposed after 3 (tragic) deaths on the guided busway in 6 years; How many people were killed elsewhere on Cambridgeshire's roads in the same period? And who was fined as a result?

407 people have been killed since 2017. AFAIK no road maintainers have been fined or brought to court for any of those. I'd guess perhaps 5% of those deaths have seen an individual driver prosecuted.

Source: https://cambridgeshireinsight.org.u...ive-travel/road-safety/road-safety-dashboard/

 

[Magdalia]

I see the Cambridge guided bus system is in the news twice today: for being fined £6 million over earlier deaths, and for a collision with a fire engine which has put 11 people in hospital.

I wrote at length about safety on the Cambridge busway at an earlier stage of the legal proceedings. Here is what I said.

The safety issue is a delicate one. This week I've been along the section of busway that had 2 fatalities, both on a bus and cycling. This is between Hills Road and Long Road bridges on the section that can be seen from the train just south of Cambridge station.

I also don't know the legal details, that's between the Health and Safety Executive, the council, and their lawyers. But I can try to set out the long chain of events that are relevant. Some of them are a long time ago and it is difficult to check whether my memory is correct.

The original guided busway proposals were for a 55mph/90kph maximum speed specification. This was part of the case for the busway as an alternative to heavy rail.

At the outset there were no proposals for a cycleway/footpath next to the guideway, only an unsurfaced road for maintenance vehicles.

The busway opened 2 years late. During that period cyclists and pedestrians started to use the busway, both the maintenance road and the guideway itself. With skill and nerve it was possible to cycle on the guideway. I know because I have done it myself, as an experiment.

At some point a decision was made to surface the maintenance road and make it available to cyclists and pedestrians. At the time this was probably regarded as lower risk than the ad hoc use that had grown up during construction, and which was going to be difficult to stop. I can't remember whether surfacing the maintenance road contributed to the delay in opening.

The cycleways/footpaths are not very wide, along the section where the 2 fatalities occurred the width is less than 3 metres. In the early days the level of usage was not high, but grew rapidly, especially on the section where 2 fatalities occurred. This was driven mainly by the huge expansion in employment in the area around the station, and on the biomedical campus. This means that, at peak times, this section has heavy flows of cyclists and pedestrians in both directions. Two big residential developments also contributed to the rise in cycle and pedestrian traffic, at Clay Farm and Trumpington Meadows.

As the traffic on the cycleway/footpath was increasing, the buses continued to run on the guideway at 50mph/80kph, with only a kerb separating the guideway from the cycleway/footpath.

This week's cycle journey was mid morning, but I did have to overtake two pedestrians walking two abreast and someone with a child in a pushchair. Both of these took up about half the width of the cycleway/footpath, meaning that I could only overtake if there was no traffic coming the other way. The increasing use of cargo bikes has created another overtaking hazard.

Before the 2 fatalities on this section of the busway occurred, I had already made my own risk assessment and decided not to use that section of the busway for cycling at busy times. Generally speaking I only use that section of the busway on Sundays, when there are few people going to or from work.

The two major remedial actions that have been taken to manage risk are reducing the speed of the buses and installing a fence to separate the buses from the cyclists and pedestrians. I can't remember if the speed reduction to 30mph/50kph on this section of the busway came after the 2018 fatality or after the 2021 fatality. The northbound guideway, which is adjacent to the cycleway/footpath, was completely closed from January 2023 until April 2024 for the fence to be installed.

Should the council have acted sooner? It is a lot easier to say with hindsight than foresight.

In answer to my rhetorical question, I think that the key section of the BBC report on the sentencing hearing provides an answer:

In court, the council was criticised for its dismissive and defensive handling of concerns that included poor signage, unsafe crossings and poor lighting.

It heard there was no risk assessment in place until 2016 - a fact the judge described as "particularly shocking".

Several accidents had also never been reported to the HSE, the court was told.

It heard that when the health and safety watchdog issued an improvement notice in 2018, the authority appealed the notice.

The council claimed it was "unwarranted and unlawful" as it had never been in breach of safety laws, the court was told.

For all the bad press it gets the Cambridge busway does sometimes appear cursed! Any arguments for future additional ones being built from the mayor are going to be controversial due to the track record of the existing system.

One thing I established recently is that the new busways do have to be guided, in order to use the Transport and Works Act Order process, though it is possible to use a different method of guidance.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough have a mayoral election on 1 May and it is going to be interesting to see how the candidates handle this issue, especially as the opponents of the new busways are likely to use the court case and recent accident to support their cases at the Transport and Works Act Order inquiries.

 

[johncrossley]

Compare the provision here to that on the Fareham to Gosport busway, which is just a normal road. There is no segregation for cyclists and pedestrians are not permitted to walk on the busway. So cyclists are totally reliant on buses manoeuvring around them and not crashing into them. This is clearly much more dangerous to cyclists than what is provided in Cambridgeshire but I guess legally this is considered "acceptable".

One thing I established recently is that the new busways do have to be guided, in order to use the Transport and Works Act Order process, though it is possible to use a different method of guidance.

Is there an advantage to using the Transport and Works Act Order process?

 

[edwin_m]

Is there an advantage to using the Transport and Works Act Order process?

I believe this is a way of enforcing that only certain buses are able to use the alignment. Without this it effectively becomes public highway, and although it can be restricted "no entry except guided buses", any operator running a suitably equipped bus could provide a service on it.

 

[johncrossley]

I believe this is a way of enforcing that only certain buses are able to use the alignment. Without this it effectively becomes public highway, and although it can be restricted "no entry except guided buses", any operator running a suitably equipped bus could provide a service on it.

Presumably this issue will be avoided as they are implementing franchising.

 

[Magdalia]

Is there an advantage to using the Transport and Works Act Order process?

I'm not a lawyer or an expert in planning, but my understanding is that it is a matter of process. The impression I was given was that the guided feature allows the Transport and Works Act process to be used. If there is no guidance then the Transport and Works Act would not apply and the busway would have to follow the planning process used for roads.

 

[Robin Edwards]

Would guided busway road crossings be better off having crossing barriers akin to rail crossings where a vehicle on blue lights would be held?

 

[ThirteenArches]

For emergency services, perhaps a pretty safe and unobtrusive solution would be for the fire service to tell the operator about any call involving crossing the busway, and for the bus drivers to be informed by radio. Creep up and look both ways would incur a fairly minimal delay. Perhaps add a second level of safety by setting all crossing lights to red as long as the emergency vehicle(s) are within a geofence of the crossing. I'm sure everyone's using vehicle tracking these days.

I'm still thinking the problem is different perceptions; the bus driver seeing what is effectively a crossroads as a privileged route, and the fire engine driver perhaps not even regarding it as a crossroads at all.

 

[edwin_m]

Would guided busway road crossings be better off having crossing barriers akin to rail crossings where a vehicle on blue lights would be held?

They aren't used on tramways (bar a few exceptions where the tramway is alongside a railway) so they aren't necessary on busways, which have similar operating speeds but probably better braking.

 

[renegademaster]

Would guided busway road crossings be better off having crossing barriers akin to rail crossings where a vehicle on blue lights would be held?

The same incident would have happened at a normal crossroad. Unfortunately some emergency drivers don't seem to follow the rules around jumping red lights, in that they are supposed to wait until they see the crossing traffic has stopped, rather than blasting through and hoping they do

 

[Ashfordian6]

With regard to the recent collision with a fire engine; from reports it seems the the traffic light signals at that junction do change/phase very quickly. If a bus is travelling towards a green light the chances are it’s going to maintain speed to travel through (especially if the traffic lights are set up to turn green for approaching buses). IF the bus driver couldn’t hear or see (looks as though it’s blind from left/right) the fire engine on blue lights coming towards it the driver wouldn’t have thought it necessary to slow down. Likewise the fire engine wouldn’t have seen the buses approaching either. It’s all very wrong place, wrong time kind of stuff. Maybe the busway should have proper level crossing barriers across road junctions like railways do?

For all the bad press it gets the Cambridge busway does sometimes appear cursed! Any arguments for future additional ones being built from the mayor are going to be controversial due to the track record of the existing system.

As a very regular user of this junction the lights do not change/phase any faster than other traffic lights. This is just someone wrongly creating some sensationalism that the BBC have quoted without checking the facts

On almost every occasion I have seen a bus cross this junction(as a driver and cyclist) the lights phase in such a way that the bus drivers have to slow down or sometimes even stop before crossing the junction. This is the same for all junctions for the busway.

It is also very rare to be held at this junction and see two buses cross the junction in opposite directions in the same light phase. This was the additional unlucky part that meant the first bus crashed head-on into the second bus after the first bus had been 'punted' by the fire engine.

 

[Dwarfer1979]

As a very regular user of this junction the lights do not change/phase any faster than other traffic lights. This is just someone wrongly creating some sensationalism that the BBC have quoted without checking the facts

On almost every occasion I have seen a bus cross this junction(as a driver and cyclist) the lights phase in such a way that the bus drivers have to slow down or sometimes even stop before crossing the junction. This is the same for all junctions for the busway.

It is also very rare to be held at this junction and see two buses cross the junction in opposite directions in the same light phase. This was the additional unlucky part that meant the first bus crashed head-on into the second bus after the first bus had been 'punted' by the fire engine.

The drivers have to slow down anyway as they leave the guideway to cross the road and if you hit the entry transition too fast when slightly off you can break the guide arms and throw the bus off the guideway. Even without the lights, and they don't tend to change that early from my observations, the drivers would be slowing and crossing at less than normal road speed due to that.

 

[stevieinselby]

The same incident would have happened at a normal crossroad. Unfortunately some emergency drivers don't seem to follow the rules around jumping red lights, in that they are supposed to wait until they see the crossing traffic has stopped, rather than blasting through and hoping they do

I wonder if emergency vehicle transponders are in general use in that area, and if they also work on the busway crossings – it may be that the drivers are so used to lights turning green for them that they assume it is happening all the time?