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Reducing the harm in rail crashes : analysis of injury mechanisms and mitigation strategies
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2016-04-12
[PDF-4.53 MB]
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Alternative Title:Proceedings of the ASME IEEE ASCE 2016 Joint Rail Conference
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Abstract:Twenty-three commuter and inter-city passenger train
accidents, which occurred over the past twenty years, have been
analyzed. The analysis has assessed the potential effectiveness
of various injury mitigation strategies. The strategies with the
greatest potential to increase passenger safety are interior
occupant protection, coupler integrity, end structure integrity,
side structure integrity, and glazing system integrity. We
recommend that these strategies be researched further.
Three types of accidents were analyzed: train-to-train
collisions, derailments, and grade-crossing collisions. Train-totrain
collisions include the commuter train-freight train collision
in Chatsworth, California on September 12, 2008. In Chatsworth
a commuter train collided with a freight train at a closing speed
of ~80 mph, fatally injuring twenty-five people and injuring
more than 100 others. Derailments include the commuter train
derailment in Spuyten Duyvil, New York on December 1, 2013,
fatally injuring four people and injuring more than fifty others.
Grade-crossing accidents include the commuter-SUV collision
in Valhalla, New York on February 3, 2015, which resulted in six
fatally injured people, including the SUV driver, and thirteen
severely injured people.
Four categories of mitigation strategies were considered:
train crashworthiness, wayside structure crashworthiness, fire
safety, and emergency preparedness. Within each of these
categories are equipment features, which may potentially be
modified to further mitigate injuries. The features are simple
noun phrases, e.g., “floor strength,” implying that the floor
strength should be increased. Train crashworthiness includes
features such as end strength, floor strength, coupler separation,
and numerous others. Wayside structure crashworthiness
includes features such as frangible catenary poles and third rail
end caps. Fire safety includes train interior and train exterior
features for minimizing the potential for fire and for reducing the
rate at which fire might spread. Emergency preparedness
includes features for emergency egress, access, lighting, signage,
and on-board equipment, such as fire extinguishers.
Overall, rail passenger travel has a high level of safety, and
passenger train accidents are rare events. The numbers are low
for expected casualties per passenger-mile and casualties per
passenger-trip. A high level of safety, however, does not mean
efforts to improve it should cease. But it does mean that crashes
are rare events. Rare events in complex systems are notoriously
difficult to analyze with confidence. There are too few accidents
to provide the data needed for even a moderate degree of
mathematical confidence in statistical analysis. Analyses of
similar data in medical and scientific fields have been shown to
be prone to the biases of the researchers, sometimes in subtle and
difficult-to-detect ways. As a means of coping with the sparse
data and potential biases, the goal has been to evaluate the
accidents transparently and comprehensively. This approach
allows a wide audience to understand how injuries and fatalities
occur in passenger train accidents and, most importantly, allows
us to prioritize mitigation strategies for research.
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