Is spending on increasing railway safety good value or should it be stopped?

[Bletchleyite]

It is admittedly a massive example of the huge difference in the safety expectations between rail and road.

Which is something I am very conscious of, and as I've said I hold the view that additional railway safety improvement spending should cease entirely because it is poor value per life saved compared with spending the same money on road safety or on rail service improvements/fare cuts to reduce car use.

Any thoughts? I can't help but think we are chasing diminishing returns.

 

[furnessvale]

Which is something I am very conscious of, and as I've said I hold the view that additional railway safety improvement spending should cease entirely because it is poor value per life saved compared with spending the same money on road safety or on rail service improvements/fare cuts to reduce car use.

Any thoughts? I can't help but think we are chasing diminishing returns.

My thoughts entirely. I have no idea what percentage of the price of a railway ticket has been imposed by safety requirements, but if it pushes the cost up to the point where a person chooses to travel by road instead, it is entirely pointless.

Now which politician or political party has the bottle to follow that line of thinking (publically)?

 

[railjock]

Which is something I am very conscious of, and as I've said I hold the view that additional railway safety improvement spending should cease entirely because it is poor value per life saved compared with spending the same money on road safety or on rail service improvements/fare cuts to reduce car use.

Any thoughts? I can't help but think we are chasing diminishing returns.

Railway is lower risk than Road transport but the impact can be a lot higher. It’s all a balance but a bad rail accident can kill/injure many tens or even hundreds of people. Road accidents on that scale are high unlikely though more people die per mile travelled.

 

[Meerkat]

Railway is lower risk than Road transport but the impact can be a lot higher. It’s all a balance but a bad rail accident can kill/injure many tens or even hundreds of people. Road accidents on that scale are high unlikely though more people die per mile travelled.

But the systems and processes now in place make such a costly accident very unlikely, particularly due to the increased survivability of passengers in a crash.
I think we should stop adding increasing safety (ie adding extra safeguards) and concentrate on enforcement - most of the near misses seem to be due to breaking or bending the rules (poor maintenance, the WCRC train with stuff switched off, the Balham PICOPS working from home/car etc).
The catastrophe risk is still mainly level crossings, but as that risk is mainly misuse by road vehicles mitigation’s shouldn’t really come out of the budget of the railways.

 

[Eddd]

The greatest risk in the railway is to track workers, is it not? Finding efficient processes to overcome people's natural tendency to cut corners is a difficult task.

I wonder though if the most effective way to reduce risk to track workers would be to install GPS speed limiters, cameras and black boxes to Network Rail and contractor road vehicles, and set up a system for data review and sanctions for bad driving.

 

[The Planner]

The greatest risk in the railway is to track workers, is it not? Finding efficient processes to overcome people's natural tendency to cut corners is a difficult task.

I wonder though if the most effective way to reduce risk to track workers would be to install GPS speed limiters, cameras and black boxes to Network Rail and contractor road vehicles, and set up a system for data review and sanctions for bad driving.

Network Rail vehicles do have that and you can be disciplined for it.