Bus travel is considered a safe transport mode that promotes active mobility and is environmentally friendly. There is a large ongoing expansion of bus transport, such as the development of autonomous buses. The overall aim with the expansion is to increase availability and usage to help achieve the goals set in Agenda 2030, while also reducing road traffic injuries as part of Vision Zero and the nine recommendations formed during the 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety.

Although bus-related injuries are quite few compared to passenger car injuries, they still occur and can affect future usage of the bus as a transportation mode. Often, injury statistics report the total number of injuries to a body region with little information about different subtypes. To better understand how specific injuries occur and how they can affect injured persons, tissue-level injury mechanisms must be studied. State-of-the-art finite element (FE) human body models (HBMs) have the capability to predict specific injuries at a tissue level, which can be used to evaluate injury prevention measures.

To further develop and enhance details in HBMs, different pieces of information from injury statistics may enhance the models. To support and continue safe bus travel, more information is needed about what kinds of injuries occur in busrelated accidents. Therefore, the aim of this study was to decode specific injuries to provide opportunities for injury mechanism knowledge. In turn, our hope is to provide a focus on injuries that have risk of long-term consequences and high societal costs, to proactively ensure that current and future bus travel becomes safer as bus travel usage becomes higher.