Rail operational incidents reach 7yr low, but safety incidents increase
The Railway Safety Regulator is committed to achieving its goal of “zero occurrences”
Operational incidents related to South Africa’s railways decreased by 5% during 2016/17, reaching a seven-year low of 4 066 incidents, compared with 4 250 in the prior year.
The Rail Safety Regulator (RSR), which on Monday released its yearly railway safety report, noted, however, that safety-related incidents occurring in the rail environment increased by 13% to 6 379 incidents, compared with the 5 520 incidents reported in the prior year.
Operational incidents comprise those resulting from operating rail infrastructure, and could include collisions with objects, animals or people; electric shocks; derailments; fires resulting from an operational cause; and incidents arising from the platform-train interface.
Safety-related incidents primarily relate to crime, and include equipment and infrastructure theft; arson; malicious damage to property; train hijacking; personal safety on trains, at stations and railyards, sidings and depots; industrial action; and crowd-related incidents. The most alarming figure was a 27% increase in the number of incidents reported at level crossings, which rose from 87 occurrences in 2015/16 to 119 occurrences during the period under review.
Also rising significantly were occurrences of people being struck by trains, which rose by 17% from 541 occurrences in 2015/16 to 651 occurrences in 2016/17.
Operational and security-related incidents resulted in 495 deaths and 2 079 injuries during 2016/17, with fatalities up 8% year-on-year but injuries down 10% year-on-year.
RSR research GM Cornel Malan said the fatalities of the 2016/17 reporting period were highly alarming: “it is almost two people dying each day!”
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