I have professionally taught railroad air brakes and study incident reports as part of keeping current, your post is largely fact-free. Some of the words are right, though, if only they were used in a different context completely. Not surprising because even experienced railroad people don't always understand how the brakes actually work, esp this latest generation of trainees.
In that particular case and in a few others, we can trace the root cause to the kind of people who sit at desks and have no actual physical experience with something coming up with blathering unclear rulebook pages and procedures that have gaping holes in the real world, they apparently think they can spackle holes in reality with enough of them. Note that the crew who let that happen were "certified", which as anyone who has dealt with certified anything knows, is not reassuring except to the dim.
Needless to say, even more pages are now required to make sure that "certified" crew are doing the job correctly. Yet more accidents keep occurring, even though railroading can be very simple if sense is applied. If one can find anyone who possesses sense, they probably won't stand for being certified under the current regimen. There simply aren't enough ibuprofen available on this planet.
On the bus: The brake pedal should directly act on the brakes. <--Period there. Power thingies and augmentations can be attached but should not be in the way of that direct link. See above para about experience-free fatasses who design things nowadays. I would not drive a vehicle with braking by wire, although I drive an old bike that has cable brakes. I made the cables myself so trust them, even though I'm not certified to do so.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
