Archive:Rail accident fatalities in the EU
- Data from January 2015. Most recent data: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database. Planned article update: (dd) Month YYYY(, hh:00).
In 2013, 1982 significant railway accidents were registered in the 28 EU countries, killing a total of 1130 persons and seriously injuring a further 912. Fatalities in the EU as a whole fell from 1 517 in 2007 to 1 109 in 2013 (-27%). Railway suicides are reported separately. With 2819 reported cases in 2013, they greatly outnumber the victims of accidents counted in railway safety statistics.
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Main statistical findings
Railway safety data are collected by the European Railway Agency within the Common Safety Indicators since 2006. Starting with 2010, the Member States were obliged to adopt the common definitions, thus data from 2010 onwards are fully harmonized.
4% fewer accidents in 2013 than in 2012
The number of railway accidents fell between 2007 and 2013 (see Figure 2). At EU level, the number has been reduced by nearly half since 2007 (from 3 811 to 1 946 accidents). Compared with 2012, the number of accidents declined by nearly 4%, but not in all categories: the numbers of collisions, derailments and fires in rolling stock increased, however not substantially (data not shown). Please note that accident figures are only reliable from 2010 onwards following the adoption of common definitions. Belgium, Poland and Slovakia typically reported all railway accidents in the past, instead of significant accidents only. This led to a lower count in several categories of accidents since 2010.
Looking at the detailed 2013 figures, the largest single category of accidents at EU-28 level are accidents to persons caused by rolling stock in motion, representing 58% of all accidents. Typically, these are accidents involving persons on railway tracks (so called trespassers) who get hit by a running train. Accidents at level crossings, including pedestrians, is the other important category, with a total number of 510 accidents (26% of the total). Together, these accidents represent 84% of the total number of significant accidents.
Table 1 also shows that Poland, Germany and Hungary registered the highest number of accidents in absolute terms. In 2013, 17% of all accidents (or 328 accidents) recorded in the EU-28 occurred in Poland, 15% (301 accidents) in Germany and 9% (186 accidents) in Hungary. In both Ireland and Luxembourg three accidents occurred in 2013. The Channel Tunnel is listed as a separate entity. A single accident was reported in the Channel Tunnel: a fire in rolling stock, in which nobody was injured nor killed.
Persons seriously injured: noticeable decline since 2008, especially among level crossing users
During the period 2007-2013 at EU level, a general downward trend can be noted: the average annual decrease in the total number of seriously injured persons was 6.9% per year, while there was an even stronger decrease among level crossing users (-8.5% annually). The average annual decrease among railway passengers, with a peak in 2010 (influenced by the severe train collision in Buizingen, south of Brussels), was lower, at 5.4% per year. Without the most serious single train accident of 2013, the derailment of a high-speed train in Santiago de Compostela (Spain) in July that year, this decrease would have been far more significant.
Focusing on 2013, Table 2 shows that the pattern for the various accident categories is reflected in the number of persons injured. Most persons seriously injured were in accidents involving rolling stock in motion (438 persons, or 48% of the total) followed by level crossing accidents (307 persons, or 34%).
Far fewer persons were injured in the other types of accidents. Train collisions claimed 32 seriously injured persons in 2013 (2012: 120), the majority of which could be attributed to only 2 countries: Romania and Austria. The comparison of seriously injured persons between countries may be slightly biased due to differences in reporting regimes in the years before 2010.
Persons killed in rail accidents: most are unauthorised persons on railway premises
Figure 1 at the beginning of this article shows the absolute number of persons killed in railway accidents. The total number of fatalities has gradually declined from 1 517 persons in 2007 to 1 109 persons in 2013, a decrease of 27%. Railway passengers constitute a minor share in these fatalities: in both 2011 and 2012, the proportion was only 3%; in 2013, however, the 97 fatalities registered represented close to 9% of the total number of people killed. This increase can be attributed solely to the aforementioned accident in Santiago de Compostela in July 2013, with 79 fatalities (representing all of Spain’s fatalities in the category “Railway passengers” and 81% of the fatalities in that category at EU-28 level – see Table 3). Without this single accident, the proportion of railway passengers in total rail fatalities would only amount to 1.7%.
Based on ERA's estimates, the fatality risk for passengers travelling on board trains over the last three years was 0.13 fatalities per 1 000 million passenger kilometres, a value close to the risk experienced by aircraft passengers and lower than the risk for a bus/coach passenger in Europe (see http://www.era.europa.eu/Document-Register/Documents/SPR2014.pdf).
At EU-28 level, fatalities among unauthorised persons and level crossing users constituted 87% of all rail accident fatalities.
The Santiago de Compostela accident also represents a very considerable share of fatalities in the category “Derailments” in Table 4, which shows the number of fatalities broken down by type of accident in 2013. In the entire EU, no fatalities were reported for “Fires in rolling stock”. As expected, it is again accidents to persons by rolling stock in motion (724 fatalities, or 64% of the total) and level crossing accidents (307 victims, or 27% of the total) that claimed most lives.
Suicides on railway premises by far outnumber those killed and seriously injured in accidents
The number of suicides on railway premises was on the rise in 2010-2012 and amounted to just under 3 000 in 2012; in 2013, a slight decrease was registered. The number of suicides on rail premises is significant in all Member States. With 834 suicides in 2013, Germany alone accounted for close to 30% of the EU-28 total.
Data sources and availability
The sources used for the statistics in this publication are data reported to the European Railway Agency (ERA – http://era.europa.eu). Eurostat has an agreement with the ERA to disseminate the data through Eurobase. The data available is a selection of data available at the ERA.
Please note that railway accident data are also collected through Annex H of the Regulation providing for statistical returns on railway traffic and transport (Regulation (EC) 91/2003). However, this data collection is foreseen to be phased out, as similar data are available through the ERA. Therefore, similar data can still be found elsewhere in the Eurobase data tree, namely under the “Railway transport” sub-domain, in the section “Railway transport - Accidents (rail_ac)” whereas the ERA data are located in the “Horizontal multi-modal information (tran)” under “Transport safety (tran_sf)”.
Comparing these data might occasionally reveal differences as the ERA handles its own compilation procedures and quality checks. Also, whereas data are reported to the ERA by the national safety authorities, data reported to Eurostat in the framework of Regulation 91/2003 are reported by the National Statistical Offices. The latter might depend on data from the same national authorities, but not necessarily so.
Context
Over the years national rail networks have developed different technical specifications for infrastructure. Different gauge widths, electrification standards and safety and signalling systems all make it more difficult and more costly to run a train from one country to another. Specific EU legislation exists to promote interoperability and overcome such differences. The creation of an integrated European railway area hence calls for improved “interoperability” – or technical compatibility - of infrastructure, rolling stock, signalling and other subsystems of the rail system, as well as less complex procedures for the authorisation of use of rolling stock across the European Union's rail network.
The European Railway Agency plays a central role in promoting interoperability and harmonising technical standards, a process in which cooperation between EU Member States and rail stakeholders is essential.
The European Railway Agency (ERA) based in Lille/Valenciennes, France, helps to build an integrated European railway area by reinforcing rail safety and promoting interoperability. Set up in 2006, ERA develops common technical specifications and common approaches to safety, working closely with stakeholders from the rail sector as well as with national authorities, the EU institutions and other interested parties. Featuring a dedicated Safety Unit, ERA also monitors and reports on rail safety in the EU.
Railway safety data have been collected by the ERA since 2006 within the so-called Common Safety Indicators (CSIs), introduced by Annex I of the Railway Safety Directive (Directive 2004/49/EC). Member States have a legal obligation to submit their CSI data to the ERA. The Agency publishes an Overview of safety-related CSIs as soon as data are consolidated. The CSIs data are reported via, and available through ERAIL system. The full set of CSI data is made available in the annually published Railway Safety Performance Report. Note that accident figures are reliable from 2010 onwards, as per the strict application of common definitions. Belgium, Poland and Slovakia typically reported all railway accidents in the past, instead of significant accidents only. This led to a lower count in several categories of accidents since 2010.
See also
Further Eurostat information
Database
- Transport, see:
- Multimodal data (tran)
- Transport safety (tran_sf)
- Rail transport safety (tran_sf_rail)
- Rail accidents by type of accident (ERA data) (tran_sf_railac)
- Rail accidents victims by type of accident (ERA data) (tran_sf_railvi)
- Rail accidents involving the transport of dangerous goods (ERA data) (tran_sf_raildg)
- Suicides involving railways (ERA data) (tran_sf_railsu)
- Rail transport safety (tran_sf_rail)
- Transport safety (tran_sf)
Data collected through Annex H of Regulation (EC) 91/2003:
- Transport, see:
- Railway transport (rail)
- Railway transport – Accidents (rail_ac)
- Annual number of victims by type of accident (rail_ac_catvict)
- Annual number of accidents by type of accident (rail_ac_catnmbr)
- Annual number of accidents involving the transport of dangerous goods (rail_ac_dnggood)
- Railway transport – Accidents (rail_ac)
Publications
Methodology / Metadata
Composition of EU aggregates
EU-28: European Union composed of 28 Member States: Belgium (BE), Bulgaria (BG), Czech Republic (CZ), Denmark (DK), Germany (DE), Estonia (EE), Ireland (IE), Greece (EL), Spain (ES), France (FR), Croatia (HR), Italy (IT), Cyprus (CY), Latvia (LV), Lithuania (LT), Luxembourg (LU), Hungary (HU), Malta (MT), the Netherlands (NL), Austria (AT), Poland (PL), Portugal (PT), Romania (RO), Slovenia (SI), Slovakia (SK), Finland (FI), Sweden (SE) and the United Kingdom (UK).
Please note that Cyprus, Malta and Iceland do not feature any railways. Liechtenstein's railways are operated by ÖBB and included in the Austrian data.
The tables in this publication include the Channel Tunnel as separate entity. Data referring to the Channel Tunnel cannot be attributed to either France or the United Kingdom. Channel Tunnel figures are always included in the EU aggregates.