Sleeper buses in India have long been seen as a symbol of “comfortable travel” — the idea of drifting off to sleep and waking up at your destination. However, the grim reality tells a different story. In the past two weeks alone, three major sleeper bus accidents across the country have claimed nearly 50 lives, most of them passengers who were asleep at the time.
One of the worst incidents occurred in Andhra Pradesh’s Kurnool district, where a “luxury” bus carrying 46 passengers from Hyderabad to Bengaluru burst into flames after colliding with a bike that had fallen on the road following a hit-and-run. The crash reportedly caused a fuel leak, leading to the fire that killed 20 people, including the biker. A few survivors managed to escape through shattered windows.
Just ten days earlier, another tragedy struck when an air-conditioned sleeper bus traveling from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur caught fire, burning 20 passengers alive. In a separate incident in Ashok Nagar, Madhya Pradesh, a sleeper bus en route to Indore also caught fire, though all passengers were rescued.
These recurring tragedies have reignited a crucial question: are sleeper buses truly safe? While several major countries have banned them, sleeper buses continue to be marketed as symbols of luxury travel in India. Germany, for instance, prohibited their use in 2006 after multiple accidents revealed serious safety flaws. The buses’ raised design made them more likely to overturn, and passengers sleeping without seat belts faced a high risk of being thrown out during crashes — often with fatal consequences.
China banned the manufacture and registration of new sleeper buses in 2012 after several major fires and road accidents, and retired all old sleeper buses in 2018. Sleeper buses were introduced in China in the 1990s due to the lack of a rail network. Between 2009 and 2012, 13 accidents in China resulted in the deaths of 252 people. Subsequently, guidelines were tightened, but to no avail. Consequently, they were banned due to design flaws, driver comfort issues during long journeys, overloading, and limited seat space. Vietnam has banned sleeper buses for safety reasons. In England, they are banned due to safety standards and emergency evacuation challenges.
India conducts postmortems after every accident—not prevention. Weaknesses in the system: 78% of buses are privately owned. India has approximately 1.6 million buses, 78% of which are operated by small private operators, many with fewer than five buses. Safety monitoring is virtually impossible. Reduced public transport and the rise of profit-seeking operators have exacerbated the situation. Buses with illegal wiring, overloading, and lack of certification ply the roads, putting passenger lives at risk. While most of these buses typically bear the names of well-known brands, the truth is that only the engine and chassis are purchased from these OEMs. The chassis is then converted into a complete bus in body-building shops. Although increasingly sophisticated electronics, electrical, and air-conditioning systems pose a risk of electrical fires, stringent safety standards are generally followed when designing and installing these systems, but the installation of bodies and modifications made in body shops are less stringent. The Automotive Industry Standards (AIS), developed by the Ministry of Road Transport, also stipulate structural and fire safety requirements for bodies, but these are rarely followed. Often, bodies are made of substandard composite materials that are highly flammable. Crash testing is rarely conducted. Body shops sometimes make unsafe modifications, such as installing additional fuel tanks. Sleeper arrangements on buses restrict passenger movement. Soft, highly flammable materials are used for curtains and other barriers. Recent regulations stipulate that such buses must have four exits (two main doors and two folding windows) that are not obstructed by any seats or sleepers, but these do not apply to the existing bus fleet. Drivers are often not trained to handle emergencies. Safety would be improved by mandating that emergency exit systems be explained to passengers while they are in flight. Crash testing of the entire bus assembly should be made mandatory to increase safety during collisions. Although current standards mandate fire detection and safety systems that provide warnings and subsequently activate fire fighting equipment, these are rarely followed in body shops. A more comprehensive AIS is needed that takes into account the risks in sleeper buses. If countries like China and Vietnam can ban such designs, why can’t India? The entire system needs to be shaken up now. Merely expressing grief over accidents or conducting investigations will not suffice. Concrete steps must now be taken to ensure sleeper bus safety.
