The Hindu : National : Accidents at unmanned level crossings increasing: Lalu Prasad

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Saturday, Dec 01, 2007
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Accidents at unmanned level crossings increasing: Lalu Prasad

Sandeep Joshi

‘Most of these accidents have occurred due to negligence of road users’

Surprise checks conducted to warn road users
Sparsely used crossings being closed down

NEW DELHI: Train accidents at unmanned level crossings have increased in recent years mainly due to the negligence of road users. In the last three years, the number of such accidents has gone up from 65 to 72, the Centre said on Friday.

In his written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad said most of these accidents occurred due to the negligence of road users. The Railways have been conducting surprise checks to check erring road users.

“We have been taking extra precautions to avert any untoward incident, which includes levelling road surface at the crossings, proper road signs to warn road users, constructing speed-breakers or rumble strips on approach roads. We have also provided whistles to train drivers to alert road users at dangerous crossings. We are also manning unmanned level crossings after it reaches the laid-down traffic volume criteria,” he said.

Recently, zonal railways have been given special powers to consider and sanction limited use subways in lieu of the unmanned level crossings wherever technically feasible. Efforts are being made to close down sparsely used unmanned level crossings suggesting their merger with another level crossing or road over-bridge/ under-bridge in the close vicinity where traffic can be easily diverted, he added.

However, in his reply to another question, Minister of State for Railways R. Velu said the number of accidents had declined from 351 in 2002-03 to 195 in 2006-07. “Though the definition of accidents varies in different railway systems of different countries, on Indian Railways, the number of accidents per million train kilometre, which is an important universally accepted safety indicator, have shown continuous reduction from 0.55 in 2001-02 to 0.44 in 2002-03, 0.41 in 2003-04, 0.29 in 2004-05, 0.28 in 2005-06 and 0.23 in 2006-07,” he said.

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