The latest version of Prof Andrew Evans’ (Imperial College London) analysis of Fatal train accidents on Britain’s main line railways: end of 2012 analysis is now available at:
This paper updates the author’s previous statistical analyses of fatal train accidents on running lines of the national railway system of Great Britain to the end of 2012, based on fatal accident data over the 46-year period 1967 to 2012. The paper examines the evolution of the estimates since 2001, and makes comparisons with results of the Safety Risk Model (SRM) of the Rail Safety and Standards Board.
In addition a new paper Fatal train accidents on Europe’s railways: 1980-2012, which covers the European Union, Norway and Switzerland, has also been published. This is an update of a published paper covering 1980 to 2009. It may be found at:
https://workspace.imperial.ac.uk/cts/Public/Docs/FTAE2012.pdf
The paper presents an analysis of fatal train accident rates and trends on Europe’s main line railways from 1980 to 2012, with data covering the 27 countries of the European Union as in 2012, together with Norway and Switzerland, assembled partly under the auspices of the European Railway Agency and partly on the author’s own account. There are statistically significant differences in the fatal train accident rates and trends between the different European countries, although the most frequent cause of fatal train collisions and derailments is signals passed at danger. The immediate causes of most of the serious level crossing accidents are errors or violations by road users.
