Transport Minister highlights rail safety challenges
Transport Minister Dipuo Peters has highlighted the need for improvements to rail infrastucture‚ rail technology and safety management systems.
Addressing the International Rail Safety Conference taking place at Johannesburg’s Sandton Convention Centre‚ she recounted rail accidents internationally and in South Africa.
Citing SA's most recent State of Safety report for the period 2014/15‚ the Minister said there were a total of 4‚632 operational occurrences and 6‚222 security-related incidents recorded.
“This signifies a 1% increase on the operational occurrences overall total when compared to the 4‚587 occurrences recorded during the 2013/14 reporting period.
“The security-related incidents on the other hand increased by 32% compared to the 4‚703 incidents recorded during the 2013/14 reporting period‚” she said‚ without providing further details.
The operational occurrences‚ she said‚ included: - Collisions during movement of rolling stock (23%) - People struck by trains during movement of rolling stock (14%) - Derailments during movement of rolling stock (13%) - People related occurrences: platform- train interchange (13%)‚ and - Electric Fires - 12%.
“Kickouts‚ slacks and human factors were the primary cause of the derailments during the 2014/15 reporting period. Inadequate supervision of crews‚ inadequate maintenance of infrastructure‚ poor condition of rolling stock‚ as well as inadequate training and procedures were found to be the other major causes as per the audit findings of rail occurrences.
“In addition‚ defects of signalling equipment‚ such as the Hot box detectors malfunctioning‚ also led to occurrences reported by network operators. Though there was a reduction on level crossings occurrences‚ the unsafe motorists’ behaviour regarding level crossings remains a concern.”
On the safety aspect‚ the Minister said human errors‚ issues of interoperability‚ upgrading of infrastructure and irregular maintenance “is still a challenge to be confronted”. She did not elaborate on this in her prepared speech.
Delegates to the International Rail Safety conference have travelled to SA from countries including Japan‚ India‚ Hong Kong‚ the United Kingdom‚ Ireland‚ United States and Germany. -RDM News Wire
