Safety in numbers : Evaluating Canadian rail safety data

Given the increased public awareness and scrutiny of the issue of dangerous-goods transportation by rail, an important question being asked is “how safe are Canadian railroads?” Put another way, the question is “how risky is it to transport dangerous goods by rail?” While basic statistics on the number of “accidents” and “incidents”1 are not hard to find, those two questions are not necessarily ea [...] In response to recent derailments and fires/explosions of crude-oil-bearing trains, Transport Canada and the Minister have initiated new safety measures2 and regulations.3 Minister Raitt has also requested a review of the transportation of dangerous goods (TDG) in Canada and safety management systems by the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.4 The committee has been as [...] The most important reason that the statistics in Table 2 provide only a limited analysis is that the aggregate statistic of accidents per million train miles, or million tonne km, ignores other contributing circumstances, such as season, origin and destination, tonnage carried, products carried, and average speed, all of which could affect the probability of an accident. [...] For example, a train travelling from Calgary to Vancouver travels through much different geography than a train travelling from Calgary to Regina; all else being equal, this would affect the speed of the train and hence the probability of an accident. [...] A second option would be to create a rail safety or transportation safety data portal, similar to those in the U. S. and U. K.15 Surprisingly, there are differences in the railway-occurrence statistics reported by Transport Canada and the Transportation Safety Board.