Light Rail - Safety

Safety

US-based research on traffic safety shows that public transport is safer than private motor vehicles, and that transportation systems which have their own infrastructure are safer than these means which don’t.

  • Regional Passenger Rail (RPR) is the safest way to travel. Its casualty rate – average number of injuries and fatalities per billion passenger miles – is little more than one-quarter the rate for motor vehicles.
  • Rail Rapid Transit (RRT) is somewhat safer than Light Rail Transit (LRT). RRT is almost twice as safe as motor vehicles, and LRT is more than one-and-a-half times safer than motor vehicles.
  • Traveling by bus is the least safe form of public transport. Buses use the same infrastructure as motor vehicles, and so buses also suffer from traffic congestion and accidents on the roads.
  • Private motor vehicles are the most dangerous form of at-grade motorized travel, with motorcycles the most dangerous of all.

There are reasons why public transport is safer than private transport. One is that since public transit's capacity is greater than that of private vehicles, public transport use can reduce the number of distinct vehicles on the road, and this in turn decreases the potential for accidents.

Read more about this topic:  Light Rail

Famous quotes containing the word safety:

    “If we can find a principle to guide us in the handling of the child between nine and eighteen months, we can see that we need to allow enough opportunity for handling and investigation of objects to further intellectual development and just enough restriction required for family harmony and for the safety of the child.”
    —Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)

    “Love no man in good earnest, nor no further in sport
    neither, than with safety of a pure blush thou mayst in
    honor come off again.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    “Can we not teach children, even as we protect them from victimization, that for them to become victimizers constitutes the greatest peril of all, specifically the sacrifice—physical or psychological—of the well-being of other people? And that destroying the life or safety of other people, through teasing, bullying, hitting or otherwise, “putting them down,” is as destructive to themselves as to their victims.”
    —Lewis P. Lipsitt (20th century)