China Railways Safety Record: A Comparative Study

Summary

1. Railways are the safest means of transportation among all methods in this study.
2. Railway safety-wise, China and France are about twice as safe as Japan and Germany.
3. You are about 2.2 times as likely to die in an American airplane as in a Chinese rail car, traveling the same distance.
4. You are about 200 times as likely to die in a vehicle on an American highway as in a Chinese rail car, traveling the same distance.

Background

China has experienced a building boom in railways, especially high-speed railways (HSRs).  There are many detractors outside of China pointing to its perceived shortcomings, especially its safety record, after the 2011 Wenzhou train crash that claimed 40 lives.  Recently the longest HSR line in the world between Beijing and Guangzhou became operational, and in reporting it almost all Western coverage brought up the Wenzhou crash.

The purpose of this post is to answer these questions: are Chinese railways safe, and how safe?

Methodology

To measure the safety of a means of transportation, in this post, the goal is to measure Deaths per Passenger-KM.  Chinese railways are being compared to their Japanese, French and German counterparts – plus American revenue-generating air travel (a subset of General Aviation) and American Highways.

Three caveats in this study:

• I use only the available data for the most recent decade.  The primary reason is that the accident reporting prior to 2000 might be questionable.
• The latest available passenger-km data for all countries is 2010 so the pasenger-km data is for 2001 – 2010.  However I use the fatality data for 2002 – 2011, because otherwise the Wenzhou crash won’t be included and it potentially will make China look better.  This overstates the fatality rate of China because China has a faster railroad passenger growth.
• It covers all railroads (not just HSRs).  For the rationale, see this previous comment of mine.

Data

Passenger-KM (in thousands)

Note:

1. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.RRS.PASG.KM/countries?display=default.

2. http://apps.bts.gov/xml/air_traffic/src/index.xml#CustomizeTable.  Select 1/2001 to 12/2010, Domestic, Total, Passenger, “Revenue Passenger Miles” and convert to passenger-KM (multiple by 1.6).

Fatalities

Note:

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_accidents_(2000%E2%80%932009) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_accidents_(2010%E2%80%932019)

4. http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/index.aspx.  Select 1/1/2002 to 12/31/2011, County: “United States”, Injury Severity: Fatal, Operation: “Part 121: Air Carrier” & “Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter”.

Deaths and Probabilities of Deaths

Note:

5. http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx.  In 2010, the fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles travels were at all-time low 1.11.  Use this number a reference and assume 1.5 passengers per vehicle (high-end estimate of passenger vehicle utilization).  This understates the real fatality rate of American Highways by quite a bit.