Women in Transport’s D&I Bus Group are carrying out research to help inform a new Inclusive Cab Design Charter. The aim is to improve the working environment for bus drivers, ensuring a career in bus driving provides a safe, comfortable and inclusive space to work. The summit will be the first consultation and research event as part of this initiative.
A number of leading bus manufacturers have already confirmed their attendance. They are bringing demo vehicles and will be joined by their Human Factors Ergonomic designers. Mike Adams OBE, founder and CEO of Purple, a not-for-profit organisation supporting disabled people, will be the keynote speaker for the event.
“In partnership with our colleagues at First Bus we’re delighted to be hosting the Inclusive Cab Summit which will see the industry come together to discuss the future of cab design,” said Caroline Ward, Project Lead at Women in Transport.
“This is the first step towards collaborative change across our sector, and Women in Transport’s D&I Bus Group is proud to be helping lead the way. We’ll be looking to share real, lived experiences alongside work and research that has gone before, all supporting the development of a gold charter to promote inclusive design.”
The event is being hosted during a challenging time for the sector. IRU’s 2023 driver shortage report found that unfilled bus and coach positions were on the rise across Europe, with over 80 per cent of bus and coach operating companies facing severe difficulties to fill positions. The report forecasted shortages to more than double over the next five years, reaching 275,000.
In the UK, recently published data from RMT Union showed that nearly one quarter of bus drivers have had time off work in the previous year due to musculoskeletal pain caused by their work. The union surveyed 400 of its bus driver members and found that 95 per cent felt the driver cabin could be designed in a more ergonomic way.
Responding to the invitation to attend the Inclusive Cab Summit, Roger Brereton, Head of Sales at Pailton Engineering, commented, “We were very pleased to receive an invitation to this timely event. We want to be part of the conversation in developing better standards for bus driver cab design.”
“We’ve developed a steering column with a unique tilting head mechanism, which is part of the driver cab for the new range of VDL Citea buses. We have also recently released the fourth prototype of our electric memory steering column for the bus and coach sector at Busworld in Brussels. We hope to show that better engineering can help raise the standard of ergonomic design.”
Pailton Engineering designs and manufactures steering components and full steering systems for the bus and coach sector. To find out more, visit pailton.com
