Statistical Causal Analysis of Freight-Train Derailments in the United States
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 143, Issue 2
Abstract
Freight railroads contribute to the national economy by moving over 40% of intercity ton-miles of freight. Meanwhile, train accidents can damage infrastructure and rolling stock, disrupt operations, and possibly cause casualties and harm the environment. Understanding major accident causes is the first step in developing and prioritizing effective accident prevention strategies. The literature has predominantly focused on nationwide train accident cause analysis, without accounting for possible variation in accident cause distributions by railroad and season. This research develops a log-linear statistical model that can estimate the number of freight-train derailments accounting for railroad, accident cause, season, and traffic volume. The analysis shows that broken rails and track geometry defects are the two leading freight-train derailment causes on four major U.S. freight railroads. Fall and winter appear to have a higher likelihood of a broken-rail-caused derailment than spring and summer, given the same railroad and traffic level. By contrast, track-geometry-defect-caused derailments occur more frequently in spring and summer than in fall and winter, given all else being equal. The statistical modeling techniques in this paper can be adapted to other types of train accidents or accident causes, ultimately leading to the prioritization of train safety improvement resources on various spatial and temporal scales.
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Acknowledgments
The author was partially funded by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), the School of Engineering (SOE), and the Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation (CAIT), all at Rutgers University. Ms. Ling Ma assisted with the development of log-linear modeling in this paper. Mr. Masoud Imaniboossejin assisted with formatting the paper. However, the author is responsible for all views and analyses in this paper.
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Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 143 • Issue 2 • February 2017
Copyright
©2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 11, 2016
Accepted: Sep 19, 2016
Published online: Nov 21, 2016
Published in print: Feb 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Apr 21, 2017
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