Customer service is more than only answering the telephone, it can be a matter of life and death.

One of the big ‘public secrets’ about railroad safety is the major cause of fatal accidents involving trains. According to a 2013 report of the Safety Unit of the European Railway Agency*, in 2011 there were 4.000 fatalities on railways. However, this number has little to do with the safety of the trains themselves but turns out to be mainly driven by the number of suicides committed with trains: of the aforementioned 4.000 cases, 2.868 were suicides, and 797 ‘unauthorised persons’ , that makes 70% of the fatalities suicides and 20% ‘unauthorised persons’. The bulk of the remainder (pun not intended) is with level crossing fatalities. ‘Real’ train accidents account for only about 2% of all of these fatalities.

There is one trajectory in The Netherlands, from Arnhem to Utrecht, which passes through both “De Hoge Veluwe”, a natural park, and “De Utrechtse Heuvelrug”, an area with plenty of woods and a favorite residential area for the well-to-do. The quietude and beauty of the environment made it a perfect place for the establishment of psychiatric institutions. Not completely coincidentally, this stretch of railways now is known as the ‘suicide track’. Since there is 1 successful train suicide every 2 days in The Netherlands, steering a train has a certain psychological risk but on this stretch it is a particularly mentally strenuous activity. The costs of both these incidents and their anticipation are way more than just the average 2 hour delay, but also the psychological damage to train personnel that has to deal with the results is significant, both from a human and an economic perspective.

Since the physical protection of all train tracks is not feasible, the solution to reduce these statistics, and more importantly their impact on the rest of society, can only be sought in prevention. Where railroad companies can hardly be kept responsible for all these suicides, they are immediately affected by their aftermaths and should consider taking steps to steer this societal phenomenon to improve safety on the rails.

*Intermediate Report on the development of railway safety in the European Union, 15 May 2013, http://www.era.europa.eu/Document-Register/Documents/SPR%202013%20Final%20for%20web.pdf

 (Originally posted on February 8, 2015)