Archive:Rail accident fatalities in the EU
- Data from January 2018. Most recent data: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database. Planned article update: January 2019.
In 2016, 1 787 significant railway accidents have been reported in the EU-28, in which a total of 964 persons were killed; another 778 persons have been seriously injured. At the level of the EU, the number of fatalities has gradually decreased, from 1 270 in 2010 to 964 in 2016 (-24 %).
Suicides occurring on the railways are reported separately, and with 2 870 reported cases in 2016, these outnumber by a considerable margin the victims accounted for in the railway safety statistics.
Source: Eurostat (tran_sf_railvi)
Source: Eurostat (tran_sf_railvi)
Source: Eurostat (tran_sf_railvi)
Source: Eurostat (tran_sf_railvi)
Main statistical findings
Railway safety data are collected by the European Union Agency for Railways (hereafter ERA) through the Common Safety Indicators (CSIs) since 2006. However, the Member States were only obliged to follow common definitions since 2010, thus only data from 2010 onwards are fully harmonised. As soon as the data are consolidated, these are published through the ERAs ERAIL database and their website (see also Methodological Notes). Eurostat publishes ERA’s data through its dissemination database. This article highlights selected elements.
1 % fewer accidents in 2016 compared with 2015
The number of railway accidents has been declining between 2010 and 2016 (see Figure 2). At EU level, the number has been reduced by 22% since 2010 (from 2 291 to 1 787 accidents). In 2015, the decrease compared with the previous year was particularly marked (-13 %) and its continues in 2016 with a slight decrease of 1 % compared to 2015, but not in all categories: the numbers of accidents to persons by rolling stock in motion (excl. suicides) and fires in rolling stock have increased (data not shown).
Please note that accident figures are only directly comparable from 2010 onwards after the application of common definitions. Prior to 2010, Belgium, Poland and Slovakia typically reported all railway accidents, instead of the significant accidents only. This has led to a lower count in several categories of accidents since 2010.
Looking at the detailed 2016 figures (Table 1), the largest single category of accidents at EU-28 level are accidents to persons caused by rolling stock in motion, representing 60 % of all accidents. Typically, these are accidents involving persons that are on the railway tracks (unauthorised persons or trespassers) and are then hit by a running train. Accidents at level crossings, including pedestrians, is the other important category, with a total number of 433 accidents (24 % of the total). Together, these accidents represent 84 % of the total number of significant accidents.
Table 1 also shows that Poland and Germany have registered the highest number of accidents; both countries together having a share of 32 % of all accidents recorded in the EU-28 in 2016. With a total of 162 accidents, the much smaller Member State, Hungary had a share of 9 %. In Ireland not a single accident was reported while in Luxembourg only two accidents occurred (a collision and a level crossing accident).
Persons seriously injured: noticeable decline since 2010, especially among railway passengers
When observing the 2010-2016 time span at the level of the EU (see Figure 3), a general downward trend is noted. This trend is noticeable despite occasional year-to-year scatter: whereas the average annual decrease of the total number of seriously injured persons amounted to an average 11.4 % per year until 2015, the year 2016 put an end to the constant enhancement observed over the years with a significant increase of 14.1%. The peak in the railway passengers curve registered in 2010 is notably influenced by the severe train collision at Buizingen (Belgium), with 171 persons seriously injured. In 2016, this category registered a significant increase of 76.1 % for the number of injured persons compared to 2015.
Focusing on the year 2016, Table 2 shows that the pattern drawn for the various accident categories is reflected by the number of persons injured. Most persons seriously injured were counted in accidents involving rolling stock in motion (438 persons, or 56 % of the total) followed by level crossing accidents (220 persons, or 28 %).
Far fewer persons were injured in the other types of accidents. Train collisions claimed 77 seriously injured persons in 2016, a large increase of 221% compared to 2015. In thirteen Member States, there were no cases of persons injured in train collisions. The comparison of seriously injured persons between countries may be slightly biased due to differences in reporting regimes. Concerning train derailments, 68 accidents were registered at the level of the EU-28 in 2016, and 27 persons was seriously injured or killed in such accidents.
Persons killed in rail accidents: over 60 % are unauthorised persons on railway premises
Figure 1 at the beginning of this article shows the absolute number of persons killed in railway accidents. Only a fraction of the registered fatalities are actually railway passengers. The total number of fatalities has gradually declined from 1 270 persons in 2010 to 964 persons in 2016, a decrease of 24 %. Focusing on 2016, fatalities in the category “Unauthorised persons” (see Table 3) expectedly remain the largest group of victims, with 600 cases in 2016 (62 % of the total), followed by “Level crossing users” with 255 deaths (26 %). Railway passenger fatalities constitute a minor share in both 2011 and 2012, when the proportion was only 3 %; in 2013, however, the 97 fatalities reported represented close to 9 % of the total number of killed. This increase is solely attributable 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 that year). In 2014, the share of railway passengers in the total number of fatalities was 1.4 % whilst in 2015 it amounted to 2.8 % (27 deaths among a total of 962). In 2016, this share was 4.6 % (44 deaths among a total of 964).
Rail transport remains a very safe mode of transport. The European Union Agency for Railways has estimated that for the period 2010-2014, the fatality risk for passengers travelling on board of trains was 0.14 fatalities per 1 000 million train-kilometres at the level of the EU (with some Member States having a significantly higher risk than others) and hence by one third lower compared to the risk for a bus/coach passenger, but at least twice as high as that for commercial aircraft passenger (see: “Railway Safety Performance in the European Union – 2016”).
Few fatalities in accidents other than those at level crossings and involving unauthorised persons
Table 4 outlines the fatalities by type of accident and confirms the image drawn when looking at the table by type of user (Table 3). Most fatalities (68 % of the total) are found in the category “Accidents to persons by rolling stock in motion”, typically involving persons that are on the railway tracks (unauthorised persons or trespassers) and are then hit by a running train. Together with level-crossing accidents (27 %), these two accident types are responsible for 95 % of all deaths occurring on railways in the EU.
Suicides occurring on the railways outnumber those killed and seriously injured in accidents by far
Suicides occurring on the railways are reported separately. The numbers rose in the 2010-2012 period and amounted to just under 3 000 in 2012 at the level of the EU-28. The number has remained under that level since then. In 2016, 2 870 suicides were reported, 3.8 % more than during previous year. The number of suicides is significant in all Member States. With 798 suicides in 2016, Germany alone accounted for close to 30 % of the EU-28 total. It is not easy to address measures aiming at preventing suicides from occurring on the railways. Barriers are often built at hot spots and railway station personnel are given training to address situations when suicide attempts might be expected.
Data sources and availability
The sources used for the statistics in this publication are data reported to the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA – www.era.europa.eu). Railway safety data have been collected by the ERA since 2006 through the Common Safety Indicators (CSIs). These were 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 at http://erail.era.europa.eu. The full set of CSI data are made available annually through the biennial Railway Safety Performance Report (paper and on-line) and the Safety Overview (on-line only). Eurostat has an agreement with the European Union Agency for Railways to disseminate the data through its dissemination database. The data available is a subset of data available at the Agency.
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) No 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 database, 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 (EC) No 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
National rail networks have different technical specifications for infrastructure – gauge widths, electrification standards and safety and signalling systems – which make it more difficult and costly to run a train from one country to another. EU laws exist to overcome such differences. Creating an integrated European railway area thus requires better technical compatibility –'interoperability'– of infrastructure, rolling stock, signalling and other subsystems of the rail system. Procedures for authorising the use of rolling stock across the EU's rail network also need to be simplified.
The European Union Agency for Railways helps promote interoperability and develop uniform technical standards, a process in which cooperation between EU countries and rail stakeholders is essential.
The European Union Agency for Railways based in Lille/Valenciennes, France, is helping to build an integrated European railway area by improving rail safety and interoperability. Set up in 2006, it develops shared technical specifications and approaches to safety, working closely with stakeholders from the rail sector and national authorities, the EU institutions and other interested parties. Featuring a dedicated safety unit, the Agency also monitors and reports on rail safety in the EU.
The Agency has collected rail safety data since 2006 on the basis of the Common Safety Indicators (CSIs), introduced by Annex I to the Railway Safety Directive (Directive 2004/49/EC). EU countries are legally obliged to submit these to the Agency. It publishes an Overview of safety-related CSIs once data are consolidated. The CSIs data are reported via the ERAIL system and are available the same way. The full set of CSI data is made available in the annually published Railway Safety Performance Report. Accident figures are reliable from 2010 onwards, following the strict application of standard definitions. Belgium, Poland and Slovakia typically reported all railway accidents in the past, instead of significant accidents only. This meant a lower count in several categories of accidents since 2010.
See also
- Railway freight transport statistics
- Railway passenger transport statistics - quarterly and annual data
- Railway safety statistics
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) No 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).
Cyprus, Malta and Iceland have no railways. Liechtenstein's railways, which are operated by ÖBB, are included in the Austrian data.
The tables include the Channel Tunnel as a separate entity. Data referring to it cannot be assigned to either France or the United Kingdom. EU aggregates always include Channel Tunnel figures.
Some data for the most recent reference year may remain provisional for some time. This is linked to ongoing investigations and hence decisions whether to include or exclude certain accidents.
