The report also highlights the causes of accidents. Of the accidents that occurred, 80% were due to external causes, and 47% were caused by trespassers.

The UIC safety database recorded that 20% of the significant accidents had internal causes, comprising technical, organisational, and human failures within the railway operation system, including passengers and other rail users.

For every 20 fatalities in 2015, one was a passenger or employee while 19 were third parties, mainly trespassers and level crossing users. Only one fatality of a train driver in collisions between trains and derailments was recorded in the 2014-2015 period. A total of 1624 significant accidents were recorded in 2015, significantly less than the 1879 significant accidents recorded in the previous year.

The report also presents a Global Safety Index (GSI), which reflects more than the number of events, because each accident is weighted according to the type of accident, number and category of victims, and responsibility. Therefore an overall safety trend can be produced without being influenced by isolated outliers such as infrequent major events.

The GSI highlights that 2015 was the safest year yet, scoring 7.81.

The full report can be read here

 

Uic Graph