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Taiwan is a long and narrow island. Road transportation is the main means of transportation around the island. Among the various road transportation vehicles, public bus is the main mode of road transportation for most citizens. Tour bus is most convenient for people to access scenic spots, which are mostly located in mountainous areas. Tour bus offers them both convenience and autonomy. However, life and properties of passengers depend on transportation safety. Safety is a fundamental requirement for any transportation means. For tour buses which are usually fully loaded with passengers, it is especially essential. The license leasing practice has existed in the tour bus industry for many years. However, results of investigation into several serious tour bus traffic accidents in recent years have shown that all the buses involved in these cases were operated under the license leasing practice. Therefore, this study investigated the blind points in management of the license leasing practice and the factors affecting transportation safety from several aspects, including tour bus organizations, operations, and management models. Through literature review and expert interview, factors affecting tour bus safety management were extracted. An expert questionnaire was designed on the basis of these factors, and the weight of each factor was calculated using analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Results showed that in the decision making perspective, all the three groups of experts considered “driver management” as the most important factor in the improvement of tour bus safety management. Driver management is particularly imperative for tour bus companies having buses running under the license leasing practice. Among the 13 evaluation criteria, “driver’s mental state” was considered as the most important criterion by the experts, followed by “driver’s self-regulation” and “driver’s experience”. The analysis of traffic violation cases also revealed that drivers of buses running under the license leasing practice had a higher traffic violation rate. Based on the above results, suggestions on improvement of tour bus safety management were proposed as a reference for government authorities and tour bus companies to help them increase the safety of tour bus transportation.
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