Plenty of minor safety incidents in urban rail traffic – reconciliation of urban rail traffic with other traffic challenging

The Safety In­ves­ti­ga­tion Au­thor­ity, Fin­land has com­pleted a themed in­ves­ti­ga­tion into the cur­rent safety sta­tus of ur­ban rail traf­fic, i.e. metro and tram traf­fic.

The investigation examined statistics on tram traffic from 2021 and metro traffic from 2020–2021, compiled on the basis of deviation reports from urban rail traffic operators. The investigation also covered accidents and incidents during the investigation period, between 1 January 2022 and 30 June 2022, and provided examples on urban rail traffic accidents and incidents. The investigation made use of legislation, regulations and guidelines on urban rail traffic.

“This has been an exceptional investigation in many ways. There were many incidents but few serious accidents and dangerous situations – which is great. We ended up looking more closely at the accident and incident statistics and the framework in which the operators operate. Some clearly common hazards emerged. In metro traffic, one of them was unauthorised access to the tracks. One reason for this is unobstructed access to the tracks from the stations. The need to almost routinely use an exception signal was also observed. Using the exception signal allows for bypassing of some of the safety systems,” says Lasse Laatta, Investigator-in-Charge.

The investigation also revealed that the doors of both metro and tram carriages can open on the wrong side, exposing the exiting passengers to danger.

“Different types of minor accidents and incidents are commonplace in tram traffic. The general problem is the reconciliation of urban rail traffic with other traffic. Other road users are unaware of the seriousness of the tram traffic accident risks or fail to abide by the traffic regulations. However, the damage has remained limited so far, thanks to the relatively low speeds in tram traffic,” Laatta says.

The six recommendations issued by the Safety Investigation Authority address the abovementioned safety factors. In Tampere, corrective measures have already been taken to prevent the doors from opening on the wrong side.