Luas Fatalities versus Road Fatalities

Transport21 Fan

Surely this is the criteria the "safety" of the Luas should be measured against. But yet, the Irish media are outraged and hysterical about a possible gauge alignment problem. What is it about Luas which makes some people want to destroy it and everything it stands for? Is it a deep-rooted anti-public transport culture within the Irish psyche?

MarkoP11

Problem is when you have a rail transportation accident it is typically horrible and many many die, you fit 350 in a Luas tram if that goes wrong its not going to be pretty. There is no such thing as a tolerable accident level nor is there any justification to consider road fatalites in any way acceptable as a yard stick

Gauge alignment is a critical issue a difference of a few mm has massive effect on the ride and behaviour of the wheel rail interface leading to instabilty. Its not a possible issue it is the reality that some of the Luas track is not in line with design spec and that the failure of the sleeper bonds leaves the rail unrestrained and thus can buckle due to unrestrained thermal expansion/contraction or be forced outward in a corner leading to a gauge varience

The resultant inquiry/report/explanation following a incident always finds that something was defective beforehand be it training (Stephen Green tram crash), rules (Cherryville 1983, Buttevant 1980), infrastructural (Dalkey Tunnel 1979) or mechanical (Gormanston 1975). The term accident is misleading, rail systems are designed not to crash, a huge list of technical systems are provided to prevent it from going wrong, its only when you get a level crossing or a bridge where you get true accidents

The Irish public are suspious because of exactly what has come out about Luas the total lack of trust of management to get it right, it was late, over budget (they did go back and revise it which hid the real amount) and now it was known to be defective before it carried a passenger This is not the end of the Luas problem it can only get worse and when the RPA announce closures to repair the defects

Capt'n Midnight

Don't they price safety by putting a value of ~ €1m on a human life ?
And then work out where best to employ the safety budget

Eg: Still don't understand why UK spend so much on one rail safety system when they could just have put GPS trackers on all the trains and used existing RF communications backbone to feed the info where needed.

Work out how people are on the Luas and how many car journies it has saved (if any since freeing up roads would entice some people to drive again) to see how many car fatalities it may have saved.

MiniD

Transport21 Fan wrote:

Surely this is the criteria the "safety" of the Luas should be measured against.

Would you prefer if the media was to wait until after an accident to scream about these problems? If the media 'outrage' causes questions to be asked and problems to be dealt with, then bring it on!

MorningStar

Human life does have a value or more precisily risk to people has a value.

I always laugh at people who say "if it saves one life it is worth it". No it isn't the economic lives of people can be more importatn that n if one person doing something stupid or dangerous looses their life. Even if they aren't doing stupid things some things are understandable. The money spent on th eroad barrier on the dual carriage way is a waste of money yet somebody going on about it saving one life making it worth while is silly. Spend the money on the homless and you will get better results. Traffic police actually being paid to be about is better. A speed camera cheaper quicker and better value

The Luas risks here are big due to numbers involved and should be fixed.

Maskhadov

I think they are going to have to close the LUAS for some time to replace all those concrete stays (or whatever the correct term is). It wont go down well with the country when it happens.

I think the whole thing was poorly managed from day one but it was our first major peice of public transport infastructure and we were a bit naive in the beginning.

MrPudding

Maskhadov wrote:

I think they are going to have to close the LUAS for some time to replace all those concrete stays (or whatever the correct term is). It wont go down well with the country when it happens.

I think the whole thing was poorly managed from day one but it was our first major peice of public transport infastructure and we were a bit naive in the beginning.

They had someone from the RPA & a professor of civil engineering on Newstalk today. The RPA bloke was saying that the track will not have to be lifted and the impact will be minimal. It seems that the issue is only in areas where the track are sitting proud of ground level. The proposed solution is to simply use addition clips to hold things properly in place.

If it was in a section where Luas shared road space with other traffic it would be a different story as the track is buried.

MrP

Maskhadov

that doesnt sound as bad. thankfully its not in the city centre that is the problem:)

MrPudding

Maskhadov wrote:

that doesnt sound as bad. thankfully its not in the city centre that is the problem:)

Exactly, it seems that the problem is related to the goo between the sleepers (?) and the concrete bed. There is obviously the option to replace the goo but it seems that firming things up with additino clips is an acceptabel alternative.

Also, apparently the contractor has accepted full responsibility and there will be no cost to the tax payer.

MrP

Victor

MrPudding wrote:

Also, apparently the contractor has accepted full responsibility and there will be no cost to the tax payer.

Except minor closures, supervision, loss of confidence ......

MrPudding

Well, yeah.... apart form that!

MrP