Privatisation has not made rail safety worse, says professor

Under Embargo for 17.30 BST 16 June 2004

Privatisation has not made rail safety worse and there is a mismatch between the perception and reality of rail safety today, according to research presented today by an Imperial College London professor.

Reports and images of fatal rail accidents at Southall, Ladbroke Grove, Hatfield and Potters Bar all figure prominently in the public perception of rail safety but the evidence does not support the widely held view that safety has worsened in the 10 years since the break-up of British Rail.

Andrew Evans, Lloyd's Register Professor of Transport Risk Management at Imperial, gives his analysis in the first Lloyds Register Transport Risk Management Lecture and his Inaugural Lecture, at Imperial's South Kensington campus today (16 June).

Taking the most important indicator of safety performance - fatal accidents per million train-kilometres - Professor Evans has plotted yearly accident data assembled from the Railway Inspectorate back to 1967, with additional analyses going back to 1946.

In the years up to 1993, BR had achieved downward trends in accidents per million train-kilometres for all the main classes of railway accident. Professor Evans extrapolates these favourable trends, and takes these as the yardstick by which to judge the safety performance of the privatised railway. He finds that the privatised railway has bettered BR's trends in all classes of accident.

Railway accidents range from serious and high-profile train collisions and derailments to more frequent but less reported personal accidents, such as track workers or pedestrians at crossings being struck by trains. Professor Evans finds that in each of these classes of accident, there have been fewer accidents than expected.

There is one indicator that is adverse: the number of fatalities in train collisions and derailments is greater than expected, even though the number of accidents in this category is smaller. Professor Evans observes that this was due principally to the severity of the 1999 Ladbroke Grove accident (31 fatalities). That accident was tragic, but given that the number of fatalities in accidents is very variable, it does not indicate that train accidents have systematically become more severe, he says.

"It is widely believed that privatisation has made the railways less safe, but the evidence does not support this," says Professor Evans. "Whatever criticisms people wish to make of rail privatisation, safety should not be one of them."

He suggests that the public is influenced far more by pictures and accounts of accidents than statistics.

"Rail accidents get enormous media coverage and there is great public outcry over them," he says, contrasting coverage of rail accidents with that of a recent road accident near Brighton (eight fatalities in May).

"They also remain in the public consciousness for a long time. The same accident may appear in the headlines several times, because of the inquiries and court cases that follow them, often over several years. This leads people to overestimate their probabilities."

Professor Evans's Chair at Imperial is funded by Lloyds Register. He has previously been funded by London Transport, and on specific projects by the HSE and by the Rail Safety and Standards Board, the industry safety body bringing together all train operators, Network Rail and the Strategic Rail Authority.

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For further information, please contact:

Professor Andrew Evans
Lloyds Register Professor of Transport Risk Management
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Imperial College London
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 6043
Email: a.evans@imperial.ac.uk

Tom Miller
Imperial College London Press Office
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 6704
Mobile: +44 (0)7803 886 248
E-mail: t.miller@imperial.ac.uk

Notes to Editors:

Professor Evans will give the First Lloyds Register Transport Risk Management Lecture and his Inaugural Lecture in the Clore Lecture Theatre at Imperial College London at 17:30 on Wednesday 16 June 2004.

A written version of the lecture can be found at http://www.cts.cv.ic.ac.uk/

Andrew Evans: biographical details

Andrew Evans' first degree was in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge, followed by a Diploma in Mathematical Statistics. His PhD from the University of Birmingham examined the effects of the original West Coast Main Line electrification, and he also has an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.

Andrew has spent the majority of his career as an academic staff member of British Universities, though he had a four-year period as a Statistician in the Department of the Environment, and four years at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia. He has worked mainly in the field of transport, though not in transport safety until 1991, when he took up the post of Professor of Transport Safety at the University of London. The post was at the time joint between University College London and Imperial College, and funded by London Transport.

In his 13 years as Professor of Transport Safety, Andrew specialised particularly in railway safety, and carried out extensive research on railway accidents and railway safety. He has participated in many of the railway safety debates of the last decade, including those on automatic train protection, Mark 1 rolling stock, the train protection and warning system, collisions between trains and road vehicles, and the European Rail Traffic Management system.

He has had many public roles related to rail safety, including being Chairman of the Rail Safety Working Party of the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Transport Safety, and being advisor and expert witness at the Joint Inquiry into Train Protection Systems and at the Ladbroke Grove Accident Public Inquiry in 2000, and being a member of the Health and Safety Commission committee reviewing the obstruction of railway by road vehicles in 2001.

About Lloyd's Register

Lloyd's Register is an independent risk management organisation. The Lloyd's Register Group works to help improve its clients' quality, safety, environmental and business performance throughout the world. Its expertise and activities cover shipping, railways, other land-based industries, and oil and gas.

Through its constitution, Lloyd's Register is directed 'to secure, for the benefit of the community, high technical standards of design, manufacture, construction, maintenance, operation, and performance, for the purpose of enhancing the safety of life and property both at sea and on land'.

Website: www.lr.org

About Imperial College London

Consistently rated in the top three UK university institutions, Imperial College London is a world leading science-based university whose reputation for excellence in teaching and research attracts students (11,000) and staff (6,000) of the highest international quality.

Innovative research at the College explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and management and delivers practical solutions that enhance the quality of life and the environment - underpinned by a dynamic enterprise culture.

Website: www.imperial.ac.uk