Usability Study of the Universal Anchorage System (UAS) for Child Restraint Systems (CRS) in School Buses and Passenger Vehicles

There have been no usability studies assessing the new Child Restraint System (CRS) Universal Anchorage System (UAS) since the system's implementation in Canada in 2002. A Within-Subjects design research study involving forty-eight participants was conducted to evaluate how effectively users installed CRSs within a vehicle and a school bus when using different Lower Anchorage Connector (LAC) and Top Tether designs. The research indicates that users are not familiar with the UAS, and that safe installation of CRSs when using the UAS is not intuitive, resulting in significant installation safety errors. Furthermore, CRS users do not understand the severity of their installation errors, and the impact these errors have on compromising child safety. Industry and Regulators must increase UAS awareness, to inform users of the new UAS design and its components, and how the UAS impacts correct and safe CRS installation.