se, from 1990 to 2005, 38 railway accidents involving dangerous goods caused 27 fatalities and 75 injuries. These 27 fatalities have been caused by level crossing accidents (62%) with dangerous goods coming from the crossing trucks, collisions (19%) and derailments (19%). With 28 fatalities, the Viareggio accident is the most severe railway accident to occur over the last two decades. This kind of severe accident has a very low probability of occurring. The chance of this happening has been estimated to be around one over several hundred years.
Supervision and investigation
The Rail Safety Directive sets out requirements for the establishment of independent National Safety Authorities. Their role includes awarding safety certificates to railway undertakings and safety authorisations to infrastructure managers, and ensuring supervision of railway undertakings and infrastructure managers' safety management systems. This supervision should include checking that the conditions and requirements laid down in the safety certificate/authorisations continue to be met. However, the risks arising from railway operations remain the shared responsibility of the railway undertakings and infrastructure managers.
The Directive also requires Member States to investigate certain serious accidents and incidents (defined as those with at least one fatality, five serious injuries or with a monetary cost estimated of at least 2,000,000 euros). This is the task of the National Investigation Bodies which are required to carry out independent investigation and to consider the lessons to be learned from accidents without apportioning blame and to make recommendations for the National Safety Authorities to consider safety improvements where appropriate.
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