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The economics of railway safety

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  • Evans, Andrew W.

Abstract

This paper reviews the statistics and economics of railway safety in Great Britain, the European Union and the United States, together with some results for Finland and Japan. In these countries railway safety has improved over recent decades. That finding applies both to train accidents and to personal accidents such as persons struck by trains. Fatal train collisions and derailments command most attention even though they are infrequent and account for only a small minority of railway fatalities. Great Britain, the EU and the USA formally espouse conventional cost benefit analysis for the appraisal of railway safety measures, using the same valuations for the prevention of casualties as are used in road safety appraisal. However there are often strong institutional, legal and political pressures towards adopting railway safety measures with safety benefit: cost ratios well below 1. The best-documented examples of this are automatic train protection systems, which are discussed in the paper. Apart from trespassers, the largest group of railway fatalities occur at level crossings, which the paper also discusses. Level crossing safety measures would seem to be an appropriate subject for cost benefit analysis, but there are few case-studies in the literature. Over the last few decades, the railways in many countries have been privatised or deregulated with the aim of improving their economic performance. Such changes have the potential to affect safety. The paper reviews evidence of the effects on safety of railway restructuring in Great Britain, Japan and the United State, and finds no evidence that safety deteriorated.

Suggested Citation

  • Evans, Andrew W., 2013. "The economics of railway safety," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 137-147.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:retrec:v:43:y:2013:i:1:p:137-147
    DOI: 10.1016/j.retrec.2012.12.003
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    1. Judith Covey & Angela Robinson & Michael Jones-Lee & Graham Loomes, 2010. "Responsibility, scale and the valuation of rail safety," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 85-108, February.
    2. Evans, Andrew W, 1996. "The economics of automatic train protection in Britain," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 105-110, July.
    3. Savage, Ian, 2007. "Trespassing on the Railroad," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 199-224, January.
    4. Clarke, William A. & Loeb, Peter D., 2005. "The determinants of train fatalities: keeping the model on track," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 145-158, March.
    5. Savage, Ian, 1998. "The economics of railroad safety," 40th Annual Transportation Research Forum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 29-31, 1998 311958, Transportation Research Forum.
    6. Jones-Lee, M W & Loomes, G, 1995. "Scale and Context Effects in the Valuation of Transport Safety," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 183-203, December.
    7. Chilton, Susan & Covey, Judith & Hopkins, Lorraine & Jones-Lee, Michael & Loomes, Graham & Pidgeon, Nick & Spencer, Anne, 2002. "Public Perceptions of Risk and Preference-Based Values of Safety," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 211-232, November.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Braut, Geir Sverre & Solberg, Øivind & Njå, Ove, 2014. "Organizational effects of experience from accidents. Learning in the aftermath of the Tretten and Åsta train accidents," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 354-366.
    3. Sudarson Nayak & Sushanta Tripathy & Aishwarya Dash, 2018. "Role of non technical skill in human factor engineering: a crucial safety issue in Indian Railway," International Journal of System Assurance Engineering and Management, Springer;The Society for Reliability, Engineering Quality and Operations Management (SREQOM),India, and Division of Operation and Maintenance, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden, vol. 9(5), pages 1120-1136, October.
    4. Zhou, Jian-Lan & Tu, Ren-Fang & Xiao, Hai, 2022. "Large-scale group decision-making to facilitate inter-rater reliability of human-factors analysis for the railway system," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    5. Zhou, Jian-Lan & Lei, Yi & Chen, Yang, 2019. "A hybrid HEART method to estimate human error probabilities in locomotive driving process," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 80-89.
    6. Svein Bråthen & Karoline L. Hoff, 2020. "Economic Impact Assessment of Regulatory Changes: A Case Study of a Proposed New ICAO Standard for Contaminated Runways," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-27, July.
    7. Quiroz Flores, Alejandro & Pfaff, Katharina, 2021. "Private provision of public goods and political survival: Rail transport in four European democracies in the 20th century," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    8. Bugalia, Nikhil & Maemura, Yu & Ozawa, Kazumasa, 2019. "Safety Culture in High-Speed Railways and the Importance of Top Management Decisions," ADBI Working Papers 955, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    9. Keita Yamane, 2020. "Market Structure, Competition, and Optimal Privatization: a Linear Supply Function Approach," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 605-615, September.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Railways; Safety; Accidents; Cost benefit analysis; Train protection; Level crossings; Privatisation; Deregulation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • L92 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Railroads and Other Surface Transportation
    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise

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