COMMENT
segregated railway system with all those, including pedestrians, cyclist and people on motor bikes, on a completely open road system. That introduces a further and overwhelming exaggeration in favour of rail.
In place of that we added together a selection of the deaths that occurred in the 10 year period ending in 2007 within the envelope bounded by the ticket barriers. We divided the total by the corresponding passenger-km and compared the result with the same for the motorway and truck road system.
Within that we ignored deaths on railway property that would not form part of the accident
statistics if they had been on the roads except for electrification and falling off platforms since they cannot arise on the roads. Crucially we included trespassers but not suicides or suspected suicides.
The shocking result is that the deaths per passenger-km by rail were higher than on the strategic road network, 2.3 per bn compared with 2.16. Of the 2.3 by rail only 5% were passengers in train accidents.
Worse than that, rail has a death rate that is 50% higher that that which would arise if the strategic road system were as segregated as are the railways (alignments void of pedestrians, cyclists
and people on motorbikes). By far the greatest contribution to the rail deaths came from trespassers, 83%.
Some might argue they should be excluded since they should not be there.
However, the counter-argument is that, if trespassers are to be excluded then so should all those who die on the roads due to illegal acts, such as careless driving, drink or excessive speed.
In place of that we say it is the system-wide measure that is important. On that basis it seems that the Transport Committee
was sold a very big dummy indeed. Rather than rail being overwhelmingly safe compared with road, it is the road that kills the fewer people per passenger- km.
Not only that, railways are fragile – at least to schoolboys with old penny pieces. In any event – if credibility is to be retained cases should not be over-egged.
Details are here http://www.
transport-watch.co.uk/ transport-fact-sheet-2.htm
Paul Withrington is from Transport Watch UK
Tell us what you think at
opinion@railtechnologymagazine.com rail technology magazine Dec/Jan 11 | 19
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