Railroad traffic accidents and consequences

The State Railway Technical Inspectorate:

• keeps records of railway accidents;
• compiles official statistics on accidents;
• and produces information on common safety indicators in rail traffic (as required by Directive (EU) 2016/798¹).

Railway safety data is essential for developing a monitoring strategy as it allows problems, causes and risks to be identified. The aim of the strategy is to identify risk categories in rail transport and to provide an assessment of the railway system in the European Union. The European Union has defined safety levels to be achieved for the different parts of the railway system and for the system as a whole². Accordingly, the European Railway Agency carries out an assessment of Member States' safety levels in the categories of risk of casualties.

¹ Directive (EU) 2016/798 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2016 on railway safety.

² Commission decision (2009/460/EC) of 5 June 2009 on the adoption of a common safety method for assessment of achievement of safety targets, as referred to in Article 6 of Directive 2004/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council.
Commission Decision (2012/226/EU) of 23 April 2012  on the second set of common safety targets as regards the rail system.

• Significant railway accident;
• Misdemeanour;
• Suicide on railway.

Population coverage

All persons injured or killed in a railway accident in the territory of Latvia. 

Geographical coverage

The data collected cover the whole country. The statistics do not include railway accidents involving trains from third countries occurring in the territory of the Republic of Latvia, if the investigation procedure is determined by the relevant international agreements.

• The Cabinet Regulation No 334 Procedures for the Classification, Investigation, and Registration of Railway Traffic Accidents of 2 June 2020.
• Commission decision 2009/460/EC of 5 June 2009 on the adoption of a common safety method for assessment of achievement of safety targets, as referred to in Article 6 of Directive 2004/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council.
• Commission Decision 2012/226/EU of 23 April 2012  on the second set of common safety targets as regards the rail system.
• Directive (EU) 2016/798 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2016 on railway safety.

Statistics database

Statistics on Latvia are comparable with those of other Member States.

Eurostat republishes the data received from the ERA for all Member States in its database section Transport / Multimodal data / Transport safety / Rail transport safety 

• Rail accidents by type of accident 
• Rail accidents victims by type of accident and category of persons involved
• Rail accidents involving the transport of dangerous goods
• Suicides involving railways

European Railway Agency (ERA) maintains the ERADIS database (see Safety inficators: .xls file will be downloaded automatically.)

• https://eradis.era.europa.eu/

Data are available for the period since 2004.

Suicides

The Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (CDPC) compiles statistics on causes of death and one of the causes of death is "deliberate self-harm", which includes various types of suicide, including on railways. The SPKC compiles statistics on cases where a medical certificate of cause of death has been issued.

The data are obtained from the unified accident record system. Data and reports are submitted to the system by infrastructure managers, railway undertakings, shunting contractors, repair contractors, etc.

The railway infrastructure manager or the railway undertakings involved in a railway accident immediately informs the State Railway Technical Inspectorate in the unified accident record system.

Railway traffic accidents are not investigated or registered if they have occurred due to natural disasters, vandalism, or an act of terrorism.

Suicides and attempted suicides are not included in the total number of accidents in order to give a more accurate picture of accidents as such, in particular those involving trespassers.

Relative rail accident rates are calculated per 1000 train-kilometres. Train-kilometres or train movements is a figure calculated by the Central Statistical Office.