Fragezeichnen
Member
You can of course run the railway on that basis if you want. However, the passengers won't be too pleased if you tell them "Sorry, a microchip has failed and we can't change the signal to green, no trains for the next two weeks until we fix it". So virtually every rulebook contains provisions for degraded working. The greater the danger, the more elaborate the procedures.Unlike things like derailments, shouldn't head on collisions through human error be something that can be made near enough impossible in the 21st century in a wealthy country like Germany.
Is it that in Germany, different expectations exist for the fallibility/competence of the individual and there are therefore fewer protections against it?
I think it's true that different railway administrations have evolved different views on the risk of different activities, as a result of the culture, and of what kind of incidents have occurred in their history.
It amuses me to see the massive arguments in the UK about DOO safety even though there are elaborate CCTV and mirror systems, and dispatchers at large stations. In Germany DOO means door sensors and the driver sticking his head out the window and it seems to work fine. Call me cynical, but I suspect that might have something to do with the lack of ticket gates meaning there are limited labour savings to be made from driver dispatch in Germany.
On the other hand, no train is allowed to exceed 100mph in Germany without full continuously-updated in-cab signalling monitoring the speed, wheras in the UK they planned to go up to 140mph with only lineside signals. This goes back to a number of nasty accidents in Germany at the time high speed running was first introduced, in which drivers inexplicably failed to reduce speed and derailed at high speed. Even on lines without that drivers are given enough assistance in the form of written route guides, additional signage, speed signalling, and the strict braking curves enforced by Indusi that it should always be very clear what speed is permitted.
Overall I think signallers are trusted more, and drivers are trusted less under the German system, but you could probably find counterexamples for both.
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