We know that rail transportation is an essential part of the economy and tourism. Even though we live in a world of technological advancements; it is still one of the most critical ways of moving and transporting goods. Therefore, we have to talk about the safety measures that could help you get an idea of the safety when it comes to rail transportation.
How Safe Is Train Travel?
There have been lots of train accidents in the history that resulted in lots of fatalities and change in security measures. According to the last report of accidents, there was some problem in Spain where at least 80 people died from it. The reason for it was that a train derailed because of excessive speed.
Nevertheless, these accidents are rare because the overall safety is remarkably good. For example, in Japan, the Shinkansen system started in the 1960s, and since then, they didn’t have any fatality from any derailment or a collision. The same thing goes with TGV from France, which is in operation since the 1980s.
However, we still have to talk about how safe train travel really is when we compare it to the other ways of transportation. The answer is different from country to country, and the overall result is that railroads are the safest way of transportation between nations and continents. For instance, in the United States in 2011, there were more than 30 thousand road fatalities and only 570 railroad accidents.
The main problem with statistics is that you cannot correctly measure the number of fatalities and the percentage of risk because we don’t have the information on other types of transportation to compare it with.
The best measure that we chose is to check the number of fatalities per distance. Therefore, we can easily say that train travel is much safer than both air and road travels.
The overall conclusion is that human and individual transportation is the least safe, and public and community transportations are the most reliable. On an emotional basis, the idea of safety is subjective because we feel safer when we are in control. We love to think that we are perfect drivers, but we still cannot determine whether we can encounter an accident sometime in the future.
Safety Management System (SMS)
According to the definition, SMS is the central principle established by infrastructure managers so that you could arrange and organize railroad and ensure its safe management and undertaking. It includes the implementation of internal regulations, workplace institutions, and procedures so that we can determine and create safety for the railroad, especially during particular tasks such as carrying and managing resources.
The solution that we have through SMS system is a possibility to identify all the threats to railroad transportation and inspect all the relevant activities so that we can create a perfect and safe passing throughout the world. The idea is to cooperate with other entities such as subcontractors, infrastructure management, vehicle maintenance, stuff outsourcing, and traction services so that we can together reduce the risk and improve the safety of railroads.
SMS procedures have to facilitate the implementation of risk management measures so that we can reduce the risk and create a world without fatalities. However, the idea is to monitor the effectiveness and upgrade adopted procedures, regulations and infrastructures so that we can maintain the level of performed activities and safety.
The Structure Of The Safety Management System:
The essential elements in SMS are to create applicable regulations and railway safety options that will generalize the entire world. Risk management procedures are here to provide the improvement of supplied materials, maintenance services with the involvement of suppliers and contractors. Procedures are here to create control and responsibility measures on all levels of railway system management.
SMS will also provide you qualitative and quantitative objectives of the organization so that we can implement and improve safety plans and meet goals. There are lots of requirements and standards for creating the idea of safety throughout the railway system. At the same time, risk-assessment and change-management procedures can affect the method of safety evaluation.
When you implement and create an SMS system that will form the safety authorization personnel, you will understand everything that the infrastructure manager wants to add and present.
About Us
TrainNet is a project of the ex-train operator that will help you understand the idea of the railway industry and everything about it. The idea is to create relevant historical, past and present of rail transportation so that we can determine what will happen in the future with this fantastic way of transports.
