Page 12 - Operation Lifesaver Estonia / Annual Report 2012

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tragic collisions, fatalities and injuries at highway-rail grade crossings and on railroad rights of way.

Founded in Estonia on 19 November 2004 -

www.ole.ee

Safety related issues have always been the top

priority of AS Eesti Raudtee. This is the only way

for ensuring safe traffic environment on the railway

infrastructure managed by our company and

providing high quality rail transport services.

Safety on our infrastructure can be guaranteed by

the good technical condition of tracks including

level crossings and the awareness of people about

the dangers present on railways and the specifics

features of moving on railways. Sensing of danger is

particularly important during the winter period due

to more complicated road and weather conditions

and impaired visibility.

The main reason of railway accidents both in 2012

and earlier periods have been the inattentiveness

of people crossing railways and trespassing. The

majority of the accidents took place because

of people’s negligence and violation of traffic

regulations.

In total there were 12 railway accidents resulting

in injuries on our infrastructure last year: 2 motor

vehicle – train collisions and 10 accidents involving

passengers, 7 of which had fatal consequences.

Only one accident involving pedestrians took place

at a pedestrian crossing, so we can conclude that

most of the railway accidents happen due to the

violation of safety requirements and trespassing.

If we look at all safety indicators then we see that

the results of 2012 were better than those of the

recent years. There was a remarkable reduction in

the number of second-degree accidents (10 in 2011

and 4 in 2012) and railway incidents. There were no

first-degree railway accidents.

In 2011 we had 101 incidents involving cars hitting

level crossing gates whereas last year this number

decreased to 73.

During the last five years AS Eesti Raudtee has

invested with the help of the EU structural funds

almost 200 million euros in cleaning railways

and railway area and development of railway

infrastructure. The company has renewed railway

lines, renovated passenger platforms, improved

track quality for increasing train driving speed

and improved the quality of passenger transport,

including the construction and maintenance of

pedestrian tunnels and bridges.

In order to adapt the railway infrastructure for the

modern passenger trains, our company renovated

between 2008 and 2012 more than 100 passenger

platforms, 33 of which were refurbished in 2012,

and built 2 pedestrian tunnels.

Last year AS Eesti Raudtee renovated 40 kilometres

of railways with the objective to make the entire

railway infrastructure compliant with the speed

Shaping the right traffic behaviour of

the general public is a long process that

succeeds through continuous and clear

communication of messages.

Ahti Asmann

AS Eesti Raudtee, Chairman of Management Board –

Director General