Improving Safety of Rail Operation by Risk Management of Accidents at Level– Crossing: case study of AA-LRT
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Date
2017-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Ethiopian Railway Corporation has constructed a light rail transit for Addis Ababa. The LRT
Project in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, consists of the East-west Line and the Southnorth
Line. Risk management involves assessing the risk sources and designing strategies and
procedures to mitigate those risks to an acceptable level. This paper considers the assessment of
engineering infrastructures, human factors and surrounding environment as the three main
factors contributing or determining accident at railway level crossings (RLC). Accidents at
railways level crossings clearly dominate the railway accident. An important first step towards
eliminating the cause of these accidents is through understanding and assessing the risks
associated with a given level crossing and acting on them. This paper introduces a risk
management process which involves several activities, including, hazard identification, risk
evaluation, risk assessment, risk treatment and control and illustrates how it can be
systematically applied to mitigate risk to AA-LRT level crossing. Improving safety of rail
operation by risk management of accidents at level–crossing is considered as significant as a
guarantee of the safe, efficient operation of the whole railway and to better safety at level
crossings and upgrades to improve level crossings safety performance. Railway level crossings,
which are used by high number of vehicles and trains each and every day, can severly affect the
efficiency and safety of road. Railway safety will be improved by organized risk management
system for assessing level crossing safety and safety enhancement measures. Human factors and
technical factors are the two major factors of accidents at AA-LRTS. Guard fence damaged and
signal equipment damaged is considered as intolerable risk in AA-LRTS and none of the
accidents recorded are broadly acceptable. Railway-controlled crossing has low cost, minimum
delay and high safety and best for the future AA-LRTS. Generally; this thesis presents
improvment in safety of rail operation of Ababa-Ababa LRT by risk management of accidents at
level–crossing.
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Keywords
Risk management, Risk Analysis, hazard, risk assessment, ALARP Principle, risk ranking matrix, Railway Level crossings