RTD lacks vital tech
RTD has technology that can automatically stop its light-rail trains from colliding with each other, but the transit agency doesn’t have the ability to slow a train rounding a sharp bend at high speed, The Denver Post has learned.
Decisions on how to best safeguard light-rail systems in this country are largely left up to individual transit agencies, and the Regional Transportation District had no automatic checks in place to override an R-Line light-rail train that went off the tracks last month in Aurora, leaving a woman with a severed leg and a half dozen other riders injured.
According to multiple witnesses, the derailment occurred as the train was going too fast around a 90-degree curve at the intersection of South Sable Boulevard and East Exposition Avenue. It’s not clear how the woman was ejected from the rail car.
Aurora police said in a news release after the Jan. 28 incident that speed and weather — it was snowing at the time — would be examined. The train’s operator was placed on paid administrative leave.
RTD spokeswoman Laurie Huff said the question of whether the derailment could have been pre-
vented with technology is not one she can answer until RTD and Aurora police complete their investigations. But she said RTD has to consider a number of factors when adding redundancies and safety backstops to its rail lines.
“Cost is always a factor when deciding whether to use any technology,” she said. “RTD is always working to discover and identify technology that can enhance safety.”
The Federal Transit Administration, which oversees light-rail systems in the United States, doesn’t require automatic braking or speed overrides for lightrail trains. Instead, it offers “voluntary minimum safety standards for transit vehicles” that address things such as crashworthiness, data recorders and emergency lighting, according to the FTA.
The FTA told The Denver Post that while it adheres to standards developed by the American Public Transportation Association and other organizations, it is “researching the need for and feasibility of mandatory transit safety standards.”
Stepped-up safety protocols from federal regulators may be in order, said Robert Paaswell, a former head of the Chicago Transit Authority who is now a civil engineering professor at The City College of New York.
“The technology is there and it probably should be invested in,” he said. “The FTA could mandate that speed controls be employed on light and heavy vehicles.”
“Conf idence in the system”
Most of the high-profile derailments that have occurred in recent years have involved heavy commuter rail trains. In 2017, an Amtrak train making its first trip on a new service from Seattle to Portland, Ore., jumped the tracks as it crossed a bridge, killing at least three people and injuring about 100.
Witnesses said the train was going too fast on a curve.
Four years earlier, a speeding commuter train ran off the rails along a curve in the Bronx, killing four people. The train’s engineer “nodded” at the controls before the wreck, investigators said.
But light-rail trains are not immune to tragedy. A little more than two years ago, a light-rail train in London’s southern suburbs went off the tracks on a sharp curve, resulting in seven deaths and 62 people injured.
Ian Brown, former managing director of London Rail who was in charge of the agency’s light-rail division until he retired in 2010, said RTD should respond to the R-Line derailment in a way that assures its riders the system is safe.
That’s what Transport for London did after the deadly derailment in south London in 2016, announcing this year that it would install an automatic braking system on its light-rail lines that will bring a train to a stop if it is moving faster than it is supposed to, including on curves.
“In London, given constant media coverage of the consequences of the accident, lives lost, funerals, lives destroyed etc., people had lost confidence in the system and no amount of experts talking about risk analysis and training had the slightest chance of reversing this, even though the system had reopened and was therefore deemed as safe in regulatory terms,” Brown said.
Denver’s RTD invested $3 million in automatic train-stopping technology for its light-rail trains nearly a decade ago, spurred to action by the 2008 commuter rail crash in Los Angeles that killed 25 people. The technology is designed to prevent trains from going through a red signal, RTD says.
It’s part of an automatic block signal system that RTD uses on its light-rail lines that stops trains from going into a certain section of track — or block — if that block is occupied by another train or has a broken rail or other safety defect. But it doesn’t slow trains going too fast for curves, Huff said.
“(Automatic block signal) would not have stopped the train in this instance, as it does not enforce speed restrictions,” she said of the Aurora derailment. “No technology on the trains now enforces speed in slower areas. This is, however, the direction toward which we are working.”
Brown said any investment in a speed control system “is about confidence in the system.”
“(The derailment) came at a time in London when prospects for system expansion, as in Denver, were high so investment in such a system was deemed necessary,” he said. “Denver is a city that is investing heavily in rail and light rail, so I would think that you are wise to give this serious consideration.”
Allan Rutter, who headed the Federal Railroad Administration for three years under President George W. Bush and is now a research scientist for the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, said it is RTD’s “responsibility” to respond to the RLine incident with an eye toward safety improvements.
“What do you do to respond to that and provide a level of confidence to taxpayers paying for the system and to the fare-paying passengers?” he said.
Positive train control
One seemingly obvious answer is positive train con- trol. The federally mandated safety system, which relies on radio and satellitebased technology to control speeds and prevent crashes and derailments, is considered the gold standard for safety on the nation’s railways.
Congress passed a law in 2008 requiring commuter and freight rail operators to adopt PTC, but it didn’t apply to light rail. RTD uses PTC to ensure safety on its commuter rail lines, including the University of Colorado A-Line and the B-Line to Westminster, but trying to apply it to light rail would be expensive and complex, Huff said.
The American Public Transportation Association doesn’t think PTC should be mandated for light rail “given the insular operating environment of the systems,” said APTA spokeswoman Virginia Miller.
“Many U.S. systems have automated braking systems and/or relevant policies to deal with red signal and overspeed conditions,” Miller wrote in an email. “It is up to the public transit agency to decide what is appropriate based on its operating scenarios.”
RTD, Huff said, is developing “enhanced” automatic train control for light rail that could address additional dangerous scenarios out on the tracks. She wouldn’t confirm whether it would address light rail trains going too fast around curves.
RTD board chairman Doug Tisdale said the agency continues to incorporate the latest and best safeguards so that an incident like what happened on Jan. 28 never happens again.
“We are taking every step reasonable to enhance safety on our buses, light rail and commuter rail so that people know they are safe riding RTD,” he said.