October 2007 IRSC, Goa (India) 1

Lessons from an accident

Marion Segretain, French National Safety Authority (EPSF)

October 2007 IRSC, Goa (India) 2

Contents

• What happened?

• Involvement of the different stakeholders

• Role and interfaces between the stakeholders

• Conclusions

October 2007 IRSC, Goa (India) 3

What happened ? (1)

• When?On October 11th 2006 at 11.45

AM.

• Where?At the border between France

and Luxembourg on the area of the French city of Zoufftgen.

• What?A regional passenger train from

CFL and a freight train from SNCF collided.

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What happened? (2)

• Line equipment:Double track with fixed equipment for

occasional wrong-track working (automatic block).

• Circumstances:One track was closed for

maintenance. The freight train was normally running on the wrong line. The passenger train was sent with a written running order as the signal remained closed.

• Consequences:Six persons died, two were seriously

injured and fourteen were shocked.

Traffic was totally stopped on both tracks for 5 days.

October 2007 IRSC, Goa (India) 5

What happened? (3)

Immediate conclusions:• The minister of Transport from Luxembourg declared 4 days later

that the accident was due to a human error in the Bettembourg station (CFL). However, the investigations were still going on.

• The emergency radio communication was not picked up by the trains.

• The current safety cut out was to late to be efficient.

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Involvement of the stakeholders

According to French legislation and following the EU directives, each stakeholder is responsible for his part of the system related to safety. In the present case, the following parties were involved:

• The CFL from Luxembourg• The French RU SNCF• The IM (RFF and SNCF-delegated IM)• The French accident investigation body (BEA-TT)• The accident investigation body from Luxembourg (EEAI)• The ministries of Transport from France and Luxembourg• The French NSA (EPSF)

N.B.: Judicial inquiries made in France and Luxembourg are out of our present scope.

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Role of the stakeholders and their interfaces (1)

• The accident occured on the French territory but both emergency services from France and Luxembourg were involved.

• In France, the delegated IM took the first protective measures (closing and lifting the line), transmitted the advices to the police and emergency services, to BEA-TT, EPSF and Ministry of Transport and commanded immediately an internal technical investigation on the accident in coordination with the internal investigation of CFL.

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Role of the stakeholders and their interfaces (2)

• The ministry of Transport ordered the BEA-TT to proceed to investigation.

• EPSF asked the IM for information about specific conditions for traffic re-opening.

• After 5 days, the IM re-started the traffic on the line with EPSF’ approval on the specific conditions.

• On October 20th, 9 days after the accident, the traffic was normally operated on the line with a special focus on the staff in charge of safety (EPSF demand). Investigations were still going on.

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Role of the stakeholders and their interfaces (3)

Remarks:• First serious accident since the creation of NSA:

coordination of the new system and information transmission are functionning well.

• Considering the important technical damages, the re-opening was quick thanks to the diversity of safety control levels and to permanent cooperation between the entities involved.

• The international aspect of the accident has a slight impact on the resolution of the situation.

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Conclusions (1)

• The official conclusions of the BEA-TT and the EEAI are not yet published.

• The cooperation between the stakeholders was good and efficient, especially between the IM, BEA-TT and EPSF, and the responsibilities are well defined.

• After the publication of the conclusions from the accident investigation bodies (BEA-TT and EEAI), the NSA (EPSF) will be in charge of controlling the implementation of its recommendations in France.

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Conclusions (2)

• In France, this accident shows that the new entities in charge of safety (BEA-TT, EPSF) are well identified and recognized.

• It also shows that its resolution is quicker and safer with an increasing number of entities involved.

• However, there was no concerted return on experience concerning implementation of emergency plans from railway point of view.

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Thank you for your attention!