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Railway accidents
Published in Junyi Zhang, Cheng-Min Feng, Routledge Handbook of Transport in Asia, 2018
A large proportion of railway safety risks arise from train collision accidents. These mostly occur when a train strikes a road vehicle, and a train collides with another train, which accounts for 27% and 21% of the total accidents, respectively. Relatively small proportions of risks occur due to train explosions and other types, which account for 7% and 8%, respectively. When a train strikes a road vehicle at a level crossing, it has the potential to cause a serious train accident and frequently results in serious harm to road vehicle occupants, although most instances result in little harm to people on board the train. The train to train collision term describes collisions involving two (or more) trains, such as roll back collisions when a train rolls back onto a train on the same line and setting back collisions when a train making a reversing movement under power collides with a train on the same line.
Analysis of human-factor-caused freight train accidents in the United States
Published in Journal of Transportation Safety & Security, 2021
Zhipeng Zhang, Tejashree Turla, Xiang Liu
PTC is a communication-based/processor-based train control technology that has the potential to improve safety because it provides a layer of additional protection beyond that provided by the train crews and dispatchers (FRA., 2007b). More specifically, it can automatically prevent accidents attributable to human error by slowing or stopping trains and is designed to prevent four major types of accidents, namely train-to-train collisions, derailments caused by excessive speeds, unauthorized incursions into work zones, and movements through misaligned switches. The PTC system integrates the locomotive computer, wayside device, communication network, and back office to process collected movement authority and speed restrictions and then comparing these against the train’s real conditions to ensure safety compliance (AAR, 2017b). If any noncompliant train operation occurred, the PTC system would automatically apply the brakes and bring the train to a positive stop. Figure 10 presents the network arrangement of various components integrated in PTC.
Crashworthiness of passenger rail vehicles: a review
Published in International Journal of Crashworthiness, 2019
These collision scenarios were also included into TSI. The FRA of the USA developed the principal collision scenario for a train-to-train collision [45]. For cab-car-led and multiple unit (MU) locomotive-led operations, the impact speed is 32 km/h. For locomotive-led operations, the impact speed is 40 km/h. Both the USA and European countries pay close attention to the importance of level crossings while discussing the collision scenarios [57]. It is difficult to set a uniform scenario for different operating environments and loading conditions. It is clear from the accident data that train to train collisions are the most serious accidents, causing nearly all the fatalities and more than half the injuries recorded. Therefore, most research on crashworthiness is focused on train to train collisions.