Safety Performance Comparison Between Light Rail Transit And Subway

Along with the expansion and addition of guideway transit systems, such as light rail and subway, there came the need to compare the safety performance of each mode. The comparison of safety performance by different modes is difficult due to lack of data, short operating history, or smaller operating scales besides the complexity of various technologies, operating characteristics, and diversified environments. In order to evaluate the potential for intermodal comparison of safety performance measures, the authors have focused on the subway and light rail transit (LRT) modes at the national aggregations. Starting with clear definitions of each safety category, the authors analyzed the safety data from the National Transit Database in recent years to estimate the impact and implications of various safety performance measures. A series of comparisons between LRT and subway in various fatality, injury and property damage categories demonstrated that accident rates may be unstable and easily distorted when the operational base is small. With increased operations, the accident rate may become more predictable even if the simple numbers of accidents/incidents may still appear random.

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