European Railway Agency Annual Report 2010

The European Railway Agency has published the EU railway safety data for 2010 along with the following press release:

 

Since data were first collected in the EU in 2006, the year 2010 can be seen as the safest on 

EU railways.

 

The data show that the positive trend continued in 2010 as there were 10% fewer fatalities 

compared to  the  previous year. 1,256 people  were  killed and  a further 1,236 seriously 

injured on railways of  27  EU countries in 2010.  Among the  1,256 fatalities reported, 60% 

(750) were other party victims: unauthorized persons on railway premises. Passenger and 

employee fatalities  made up 5% of all persons killed on European railways,  excluding 

suicides.

 

There were 2,743 suicides recorded on EU railways in 2010, comparable to the 2009 record 

of 2,773.

 

Overall, the 27 Member States reported 2,401 significant railway accidents that occurred

in 2010. The number of significant accidents fell in 2010 in all categories. The reduction was 

most significant in the categories of derailments and other accidents.  However, we should 

remember that prior to 2010, the accident reporting procedures were still developing in the 

Member States and several countries only adopted EU definitions in 2010.

 

The number of level-crossing accidents constitutes a substantial share of the total number of 

accidents. Member States reported that 359 level-crossing users were killed and 327 were 

seriously injured in a total of 619 accidents occurring on more than 120,000 level crossings 

in the EU. Level-crossing accidents represent one fourth of all railway accidents, but their 

number has halved compared to the period 2006-2007.

 

After a 2% drop in 2009, the traffic performance in terms of  train-km was stable in  2010;

4,019 million train-km were  recorded on the EU railway network. The number of 

passenger-km decreased slightly to 397 billion km.  

 

Railway safety data has been collected by the European Railway Agency since 2006 as socalled Common Safety Indicators (CSIs), which were introduced by Annex I of the Railway 

Safety Directive in 2004. Member States have a legal obligation to submit their CSI data for

the preceding year to the Agency by 30 September.