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According to a 2011 article[0], the US has (or at least had) the largest number of deaths per passenger-mile in the world. It’s easy to overweight recent event

According to a 2011 article[0], the US has (or at least had) the largest number of deaths per passenger-mile in the world. It’s easy to overweight recent events. Can this be true? It feels like there’s a piece missing somewhere. [0] https://pedestrianobservations.com/2011/06/02/comparative-rail-safety/ https://pedestrianobservations.com/2011/06/02/comparative-ra...

rayiner 9y ago
It’s totally believable. China and Europe both implemented some form of positive train control, largely because much of their passenger traffic runs on relatively new track designed for passenger traffic. In the US, we’ve not built significant passenger rail track in a century. The only part of Amtrak’s network owned by Amtrak is the northeast corridor. Key parts of that infrastructure date to the 1800s (e.g. the tunnel under Baltimore). Everywhere else, Amtrak runs in freight track.
jdonaldson 9y ago
I came in here to vent about how unsafe our rail systems are. However, our deaths per passenger-mile are well below the EU average, and we're safer than all except UK, Denmark, and Netherlands: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jul/25/how-safe-are-europe-railways https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jul/25/how-sa... Still, this wreck is sad, and also embarrassing. Our rail system is just not a meaningful transportation network, and is such a missed opportunity. Even small efforts at improving it seem to end in failure, or even disaster.
- niftich 9y ago
  Reading transportation fatality statistics requires some nuance. In the realm of railways, most fatalities tend to be suicides causing no additional deaths, which are often analyzed separately. The EU does this [1], while the Guardian article only raises this distinction halfway through. Once you exclude suicides, there are several other categories that are useful to distinguish: collisions (e.g. between two trains), derailments, accidents at road-crossings, and 'accidents to persons caused by rolling stock in motion' [2]. The share of accidents by category will tell you a lot about a particular country's issues; a relatively large amount of level crossing accidents may suggest that not enough of the rail network may be grade separated (e.g. Poland, Hungary, Romania), while a high share (and absolute number) of collisions or derailments would be a serious cause for alarm. Also consider this 2012 post [3] which compares collisions and derailments per usage by country between Europe and the US, originally written as a response to that 2011 article. [1] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Rail_accident_fatalities_in_the_EU http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?... [2] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Accidents_to_persons_caused_by_rolling_stock_in_motion http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/... [3] http://reasonrail.blogspot.com/2012/07/us-and-european-rail-safety.html http://reasonrail.blogspot.com/2012/07/us-and-european-rail-...
  - jdonaldson 9y ago
    Great details, thanks.

rayiner 9y ago

It’s totally believable. China and Europe both implemented some form of positive train control, largely because much of their passenger traffic runs on relatively new track designed for passenger traffic. In the US, we’ve not built significant passenger rail track in a century. The only part of Amtrak’s network owned by Amtrak is the northeast corridor. Key parts of that infrastructure date to the 1800s (e.g. the tunnel under Baltimore). Everywhere else, Amtrak runs in freight track.

jdonaldson 9y ago

I came in here to vent about how unsafe our rail systems are. However, our deaths per passenger-mile are well below the EU average, and we're safer than all except UK, Denmark, and Netherlands: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jul/25/how-safe-are-europe-railways https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jul/25/how-sa... Still, this wreck is sad, and also embarrassing. Our rail system is just not a meaningful transportation network, and is such a missed opportunity. Even small efforts at improving it seem to end in failure, or even disaster.

niftich 9y ago
Reading transportation fatality statistics requires some nuance. In the realm of railways, most fatalities tend to be suicides causing no additional deaths, which are often analyzed separately. The EU does this [1], while the Guardian article only raises this distinction halfway through. Once you exclude suicides, there are several other categories that are useful to distinguish: collisions (e.g. between two trains), derailments, accidents at road-crossings, and 'accidents to persons caused by rolling stock in motion' [2]. The share of accidents by category will tell you a lot about a particular country's issues; a relatively large amount of level crossing accidents may suggest that not enough of the rail network may be grade separated (e.g. Poland, Hungary, Romania), while a high share (and absolute number) of collisions or derailments would be a serious cause for alarm. Also consider this 2012 post [3] which compares collisions and derailments per usage by country between Europe and the US, originally written as a response to that 2011 article. [1] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Rail_accident_fatalities_in_the_EU http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?... [2] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Accidents_to_persons_caused_by_rolling_stock_in_motion http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/... [3] http://reasonrail.blogspot.com/2012/07/us-and-european-rail-safety.html http://reasonrail.blogspot.com/2012/07/us-and-european-rail-...
- jdonaldson 9y ago
  Great details, thanks.