The Israeli Ministry of Transportation, Road Safety and Infrastructure announced, Monday, that Minister Yisrael Katz has decided to require fire extinguishing systems on all the country’s buses, as part of a package to improve safety on buses, following dozens of bus fires in the past year.
The package also includes installation of fire detectors in the engine and battery compartments, as required by international standards. At the end of February, Fire Chief Shahar Ayalon threatened to close down the Egged transportation cooperative if fire extinguishing was not installed (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/263013#.UT2hFNbfC5w).
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/264059#%2EUT7LhGt5mK0
SP is trying to get in contact with The Israeli Ministry of Transportation, Road Safety and Infrastructure to propose to them to adopt the P-mark system for verifying and securing a good level of quality for fire suppression systems in engine compartments of buses and coaches instead of them developing a new standard.
The basic reason for this is due to the fact that this system has been developed during a long time together with worldwide experts and shown to be effective and reliable for verifying the fire fighting performance and survivability of these systems. Instead of developing a new test standard and qualification system for Israel the most cost effective way forward in a societal cost perspective way would be to simply adopt the P-mark system.
The system is already in place and can easily be adopted and introduced on the market to immediately satisfy the urgent need for installing these systems in Israel based order to introduce the P-mark system for verifying and securing a good level of quality for fire suppression systems in engine compartments of buses and coaches.
Israel will be the first country in the world legislating about fire suppression systems in engine compartments of buses and coaches.
Also view:
Road Safety and the Suppression of Bus Fires
