TY - CONF A1 - Hofmann-Böllinghaus, Anja T1 - What can we learn from European train fire safety regulations for fire safety regulations for busses? T2 - Proceedings from 5th International Conference on Fire in Vehicles - FIVE 2018 N2 - Recent bus fires in Europe, such as the bus fire in France 2015 with 43 fatalities and the bus fire in Germany 2017 with 19 fatalities, show that these fires can be very hazardous and time for escape can be too short. Recently, several fire safety measures came into force for busses. Engine compartment suppression systems will be mandatory for all busses in Europe. This is a big step in fire safety as about 80 % of fires start in the engine compartment. However, in several recent bus fires a time of less than 5 minutes has been reported from detection of the fire to a fully developed fire. As normally many people are on board of a bus, a bus fire is not comparable to fire in a home. Especially for people with reduced mobility or for fires after a collision the available times for escape are too short. When the fire service is on scene the transition to a fully developed fire might have happened already. Passengers who are not able to escape in this short period of time mostly cannot be rescued by the fire service even with quick response times because of the dramatic fire development. Fires that do not start in the engine compartment but develop in the cabin are rarer but extremely dangerous because fire and smoke spread very rapidly. The reason for the fast fire and smoke development in the cabin are the materials which are used. Over the last tens of years materials in busses had major developments. The amount of plastic in the cabin has grown significantly. In a modern coach the biggest fire load often is not the fuel anymore but the interior materials. Bus fire safety is mainly regulated by ECE regulations R 118 and R 107. A comparison with European standards for trains shows that for trains, in contrast to busses, a holistic fire concept exists. Fire scenarios as well as escape scenarios and passenger behaviour are taken into account, resulting in fire safety regulations on a high level compared with bus regulations. In contrast to regulations for train materials no limits for heat or smoke production are given for bus materials. Larger heat release values promote more rapid fire spread. Also smoke production and toxicity are key factors in fires. The smoke reduces the visibility in the case of fire, and together with the toxicity of the smoke can make escape from the vehicle impossible. Figure 1 shows the remains of the bus from the recent severe bus fire in Germany in 2017. As a result of experience with real cases and results from research projects we think it is necessary to develop a holistic fire safety concept for busses as it exists for other transport means like railways. The fire safety concept should include vehicle configuration and design as well as areas of use, e.g. use in cities, use in long-distance traffic on motorways and use in tunnels. T2 - FIVE Conference CY - Boras, Sweden DA - 03.10.2018 KW - Fire safety concept KW - Busses KW - Trains KW - Reaction-to-fire PY - 2018 SN - 978-91-88695-95-6 VL - 2018 SP - 215 EP - 225 PB - RISE CY - Boras, Schweden AN - OPUS4-46544 LA - deu AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -