Critical Incident Management and Clearance Practices for Rail Transit.

摘要

Rail networks are especially vulnerable to critical incidents owing to the lack of alternate routings. Rail agencies take their responsibility of transporting thousands of daily riders seriously, and also place a high priority on safety. When a critical incident occurs, sorting out these priorities is challenging. The loss of life or serious injury clearly requires a serious investigation to determine the cause of the incident. In such circumstances, it can appear heartless to focus on restoration of service, but rail customers still need to be transported, and many passengers may be on trains undamaged but affected by the incident. The challenge is to balance safety and the needs of incident investigation with customer impacts. The purpose of this synthesis is to document the approaches and frustrations that rail transit agencies have experienced regarding incident response. The study summarizes major issues faced by agencies in responding effectively, identifies successful strategies, and considers how post-incident evaluation affects response to the next incident. The emphasis is on best-practice solutions that work in the real world.