Public transport passenger accidents: an analysis of the structural and functional characteristics of passenger and vehicle.

An analysis was conducted of accidents occurring to passengers aboard transit vehicles of the San Francisco Municipal Railway in 1989. It was expected that passenger accidents were not distributed randomly across transit modes or passenger age cohorts but that strong associations would be found between type of accident and structural and functional characteristics of the vehicles and passengers. That expectation was realized, with passengers from the oldest age groups having the highest relative frequency of accidents and vehicles with three steps being involved in a disproportionately large share of boarding and alighting accidents. It was also found that passengers were most likely to be struck or caught by vehicle doors while alighting from vehicles with inwardly opening doors and, further, that those passengers were most likely to be young children. Incidence rates for various types of accidents were computed by vehicle type and passenger age, as were risk ratios.