SA’s railways safety stats nothing short of terrifying
In the last financial year there were 1 027 collisions, 450 derailments, 588 people were struck by trains and 745 fires - of which 70% were veld fires.
Overloaded Metrorail train to Khayelitsha, Cape Town, with some passengers sitting on the roof of the train. Picture by BHEKI RADEBE
Despite a more than 54% decrease in the distance travelled by passenger trains for the 2017-18 financial year, the Rail Safety Regulator said yesterday at the launch of its State of Rail Safety Report that there had been an increase of 1.6% in train collisions.
This year’s report focussed on “harm to persons [inclusive of the public, passengers and workforce] when analysing safety risk profiles to obtain a more holistic picture of the railway’s safety performance” and formulated “harm” as “fatalities and weighted injuries [FWI]”.
The regulator’s top five categories were collisions (1 027); fire (745 – 70% were veld fires); platform-train interchange (PTI) occurrences (744); people struck by trains (588); and derailments (450). Transnet Freight Rail was a significant contributor as well, the report found.
PTI incidents – up 30% – accounted for 16.6% of all incidents.
“The majority of these occurrences are attributed to Prasa, being the dominant passenger operator,” said the report. “Prasa accounted for 98.5% and Shosholoza Meyl accounted for 1.5% of the total PTI occurrences reported in the 2017-18 FY [financial year].”
According to the regulator’s data, the worst day of the week was Tuesday at 130 incidents, while the worst times were between 4am and 8am (peaking at 165), and 4pm and 10pm (peaking at 107). When it came to train derailments, there was a 17% increase “with a concomitant increase in FWI by 67.4%”.
An investigation of major train-on-train collisions revealed poor maintenance of infrastructure and the failure of signalling systems lead to some of the collisions. Failure of signalling systems were as a result of theft and vandalism, while some collisions were due to train control officers and train crews failing to adhere to operating procedures.
Deputy Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga launched a broadside at rail transport operators during the launch yesterday.
“It can’t be that in South Africa we expect train accidents almost every week, it can’t,” Chikunda said. “It cannot be a court telling us what to do. It can’t. It cannot be that we are put under administration by the court. It cannot be. It should embarrass all of us.
“I don’t want to go to report to court that operator ‘X’ has done this or operator ‘X’ has not done this, because it’s things we are saying every day.”
According to the Metrorail website, the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) operates in Gauteng, Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape and transported up to two million passengers a day.
The agency owned 317 of the 468 stations Metrorail operated, with the rest owned by Transnet Freight Rail (TFR), and provided commuter rail services on 3 180km of track of which it owned 2 228km and TFR the rest.
“The theft of assets and malicious damage of property [vandalism] continue to plague the railway environment.
“Of all the operators, Prasa appears to be most affected by these incidents. Prasa reported the most malicious damage to property [50%] in 2017-18,” stated the report.
Across all rail operators, the number of incidents where theft of assets impacted on operational safety rose from 4 379 in 2017 to 4 984 this year.
– amandaw@citizen.co.za
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