The Hidden Cost of Speed: Why India’s Private Sleeper Buses Are ‘Moving Coffins’

When you book an overnight bus, you expect to wake up in another city — not inside a nightmare.

The Kurnool bus fire that killed and injured dozens wasn’t an isolated accident. It was a symptom of India’s broken intercity travel system, where speed and profit often come before passenger safety.

These private sleeper coaches — sleek on the outside, deadly inside — have earned a chilling nickname from safety experts:
“Moving coffins.”

The Toxic Tinderbox: Flammable Interiors and Rapid Flashover

The speed of the Kurnool fire — consuming the bus in under three minutes — was fueled by highly combustible interiors.
Forensic analysis confirmed the use of polyurethane foam in seats, PVC ceiling panels, vinyl flooring, and synthetic curtains — materials that ignite easily due to a Limiting Oxygen Index (LOI) of just 18–21.

Fire-retardant materials, in contrast, have an LOI above 26 — enough to buy vital escape time.
But in this case, the entire bus ignited at once, trapping passengers in a chamber filled with carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide.

“We woke up to screams — the ceiling and bunks were already burning.”
— Kurnool bus fire survivor

The tragedy shows how cheap interiors and closed ventilation create a deadly synergy. Within minutes, flashover — when every surface catches fire simultaneously — left no time for escape.

Illegal Modifications and Regulatory Evasion

The Kurnool bus wasn’t born dangerous — it was made dangerous.
Originally registered as a seater, it was illegally converted into a sleeper without safety clearance.

Worse, it was registered in Diu and Daman, then later in Odisha, allowing the operator to evade stricter RTO inspections in Telangana and Karnataka.
This practice, called “registration arbitrage,” helps operators bypass local safety scrutiny and accumulate unpaid challans — this bus had 16 violations worth ₹23,120.

Such conversions routinely ignore AIS-119, India’s sleeper coach safety standard, which mandates:

• Fire-retardant cushions and panels

• Minimum gangway width

• Multiple emergency exits

• Roof hatches for escape

None of these were followed.
The result? A bus turned into a trap on wheels.

AIS-119: A Standard Ignored, Not Implemented

India’s Automotive Industry Standard 119 (AIS-119) lays out clear rules for sleeper bus safety — including fireproof materials, emergency exits, and illumination for night evacuations.

The first phase of AIS-119 was enforced in December 2023, introducing reflective gangway tapes and safety hammers.
However, the more critical Phase 2 — which mandates fire detection systems, wider gangways (550 mm), and emergency lighting per AIS-153 — won’t be implemented until July 2025.

Even more worrying, fire suppression systems inside passenger areas (mandatory for buses with 22+ seats) apply only from September 2025.
That means for the next several months, thousands of buses remain non-compliant and unsafe.

In the Jaisalmer bus fire, caused by a short circuit in the AC wiring, investigators found the same loopholes — flammable interiors, blocked exits, and missing fire systems.
The tragedy underscores how delays in enforcement can cost lives.

A Pattern of Preventable Tragedies

From Kurnool to Jaisalmer, the pattern is identical:

• Flammable interiors

• Illegal sleeper conversions

• Blocked or missing emergency exits

• Driver fatigue and delayed rescue response

Both incidents occurred on overnight routes — the very journeys millions of Indians take every week.

The message is clear: these are not “accidents.” They are failures in design, regulation, and enforcement.
Until AIS-119 is uniformly implemented and every private bus undergoes real safety inspection — not just paper compliance — India’s highways will continue to run “moving coffins.”

The Road Ahead

Saving lives on India’s highways isn’t about new laws — it’s about making existing ones real.

What needs to happen now:

1. Retrofitting existing buses with fire-retardant materials

1. Mandatory dual drivers for long routes

1. GPS-linked safety inspections tied to permits

1. Public access to bus compliance data

Because safety isn’t a privilege — it’s a right for every passenger who boards a bus hoping to reach home.