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Ride quality is an important concern for users of road vehicles. Typically, vehicle comfort is qualified in a subjective manner to describe the users' perception, but mechanical vibration is utilized as a quantitative parameter. This work shows some results of mid-size bus' ride quality evaluation used in a typical city route for public transportation. The bus was instrumented and vertical acceleration was measured at the floor and on two seats, one at the middle of the bus and other in the most rear. Acceleration data was used to evaluate the vibration according to the ISO Standard 2631-1, considering only vertical direction for seated and standing passenger positions. The results showed that vibration levels in this bus can be high enough to negatively affect the passengers ride and comfort, increasing the risk of affecting human health.

The relationship between road geometric design and vehicles moving along it should be in a harmonic way in order to reduce the risk of accident occurrence. As a safety issue, the accident black spot analysis can lead to improvements in traffic signaling and/or to changes to the conflictive roadway section. This paper shows the applicability of the vehicle's dynamic behavior simulation as a complementary tool for evaluating geometrical modifications of roadway sections. A simplified example is described using a typical heavy vehicle, which follows a roadway section under two scenarios, one with an unchanged path and other with some modifications in order to increase safety. Results showed that vehicle's dynamic simulation can offer a detailed perspective of the vehicle's behavior to identify the effectiveness of the proposed changes before they are applied in the practice.