Security related incidents in South Africa’s rail environment have increased for the 2017/18 financial year.

This is according to the latest State of Safety Report compiled by the Railway Safety Regulator (RSR). The report notes that for the reporting period of 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018 security-related incidents have increased by 21.3%.

The document also provides an analysis of operational occurrences and while the security occurrence data showed an increase the traffic volumes for each of the three major operators – Transnet Freight Rail (TFR), Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) and Bombela (Gautrain) recorded a decrease.

Areas of concern

The top five categories of occurrences reported in 2017/18 include collisions, fire, platform or train interchange occurrences, people struck by trains and derailments. According to the report the top five categories of concern, which contributed the most harm, include:

• People struck by trains, (Fatality Weighted Injuries (FWI) = 367.4);
• Platform-train interchange occurrences (FWI = 77.8);
• Level crossing occurrences (FWI = 67.6);
• Collisions (FWI = 41.2); and
• Passengers traveling outside designated area of train (FWI = 39).

Western Cape woes

The rail related issues affecting the Western Cape recently did not go unnoticed with the province recording the greatest number of assault incidents for personal safety on trains in 2017/18. Furthermore a significant proportion of personal safety at stations incidents occurred in the Western Cape.

Turning to challenges faced by operators, Prasa was responsible for contributing most to three of the five mentioned operational occurrence categories. The rail agency also reported the most malicious damage (50%) to property in 2017/18.