The long distance buses safety situation from a new database created using road crashes mass media coverage in Ecuador

In Ecuador, the main mean of passenger public transport between cities is the bus. In 2016 was the responsible for 7% of the road crashes. The official road crash database lacks of disaggregated information related to road crashes with Long Distance Buses (LDB). In this research some relevant data of road crashes with at least one LDB involved (RC-LDB), reported in the news and social networks is compared with the official statistics from National Transit Agency (NTA-DB). ology: The empirical, retrospective, documentary and descriptive methodology (COOPERA-TCP) was applied for the RC-LDB data collection based on the information published in the Mass Media Reporting (MMR). In the period 2015–2017, in Ecuador 119 RC-LDB have produced 225 deaths, 594 and 1008 serious and minor injured respectively. The quantitative results achieved because the disaggregated selected data, allows the development of more specific studies. The two subsets comparison, revealed that some important variables are not collected, and there is an underreporting of deaths in official statistics. The new RC-LDB database is a huge contribution to deal with Ecuadorian LDB road safety behaviour studies. It could be extended to other road user groups in countries where there is limited access to reliable and structured road crashes information system. •The methodology generates valuable information regarding traffic accidents for other variables of interest (users, vehicles, countries, etc.) with incomplete information systems.•Comparison of the data obtained with those of the official information system warns about the underreporting existence of road crash and the lack of valuable information for a deeper understanding of the problem.•Road safety indicators are provided, which allow us to know the pattern and severity of collisions with Long Distance Buses in Ecuador.