Safety and Risk Management in Train Transportation: A Case Study of Kerang Train Disaster in Australia

Running head: SAFETY AND RISK MANAGEMENT
SAFETY AND RISK MANAGEMENT
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1SAFETY AND RISK MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
The incident and the response................................................................................................2
How safety breaches contributed to the train crash...............................................................3
Changes in the policy and practice that resulted from the incident and how they were
implemented...........................................................................................................................3
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References:.................................................................................................................................7

SAFETY AND RISK MANAGEMENT
Introduction
Transport system has a significant contribution towards the progress and development
of a country. It is very important for a country to ensure that its transportation system is safe,
secure and at the same time is sustainable, and competitive as well. Train is one of the
significant innovations of the transport industry. It has allowed the society too grow and
develop both notably and on a large scale. The towns and the cities situated far across each
other have been connected overnight because of the rapid growth in these areas. However,
due to negligence of the rail authorities and safety breaches there are several incidents of train
crashes seen in near about every year in different parts of the world. One of such significant
rail crashes is the Kerang train disaster that took place on 5th of June in the year 2007 in
Australia at about 13:40 (Waterson et al., 2017). Apart from this there are about 100 of
accidents that takes place in the level crossings of Australia each year. However this paper is
going to elaborate on the incident of Kerang train crash and assess how the safety breaches
have contributed to this. Furthermore, it shall present a detailed analysis over the changes in
the policy and practices that was resulted from the incident and they were implemented.
Discussion
The incident and the response
The massive disaster of Kerang train accident accident on the year 2007 in the
Australian state of Victoria in Piangil railway line (Salmon, Walker & Stanton, 2015). This
type of incident is known to be as level crossing collision. The major reason of the accident
was a truck consisted of a refrigerated curtain sided trailer. The train got collided with the
truck and resulted in the closure of all the nearby sections of the Murray Valley Highway.
About 11 people were killed in this incident and 23 were injured during the crash and this has