A panel of international public transportation safety experts outlined at a local convention Tuesday their countries’ safety rules on subways, including the ability to fire managers — lessons carefully listened to by U.S. transportation officials who are trying to create a national subway oversight system.
The session was part of the annual Transportation Research Board convention in which more than 10,000 experts from government agencies, universities and the private sector gather in Washington. Last year the convention was held just before the inauguration when Metro faced its biggest crowds. This year, the backdrop was the June 22 Metro crash that killed nine people.
The Red Line crash shined a spotlight on the nation’s lack of federal safety standards for subway systems, prompting federal officials to look into the existing state oversight system. “We were underwhelmed,” Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff told the panel Tuesday. “The status quo was very inadequate.”
The Obama administration has bills pending in Congress to create federal safety standards. Among the lessons shared were:
» Japan: Rules were tightened after a 2005 crash near Osaka killed 107 people when a train running at 72 mph, instead of the 44 mph limit, derailed into an apartment building. Japan International Transport Institute’s Tadashi Kaneko said the government improved speed controls in the country where the average person takes public transit 742 times a year. It also can kick out the safety manager or operations manager of private transit companies and force companies to revise their safety manuals.
» Germany: The national safety system also has learned from mistakes. Emergency brakes in individual train cars do not allow the trains to stop inside tunnels, said Adolf Mueller-Hellmann, past director of the Association of German Transport Companies. Instead, pulling the brakealerts the train operator, who stops the train at the nearest station, fallout from a tunnel fire years ago.
» France: The famed Paris Metro has had just three fatal rail accidents in its more than 100-year history. Field managers oversee only about 20 operators and four dispatchers, monitoring their work and meeting with them face-to-face, said Regie Autonome des Tranport Parisiens’ Mathieu Dunant. But to combat varied safety interpretation in the decentralized system, the RATP conducts audits at three levels.
Rogoff told The Examiner he was impressed how safety systems elsewhere are more integrated so that safety regulations are considered when systems are designed, not just operated.
