Analysis of German Rail Accident Statistics for Risk Assessments

The Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Reactor Safety (BMU), Bonn, commissioned the Gesellschaft fUr Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GAS) mbH, Cologne, to conduct a study with the objective to quantify the radiological risks associated with the transportation of radioactive waste to the KONRAD final waste repository (Lange et al. 1992). Some methods and results of this investigation have been reported in (Lange et al. 1992, this conference) As most of the transports to the repository are to be rail transports, a major aspect of the study mentioned above was the risk arising from rail accidents. In general the wagons carrying radioactive waste will run in mixed cargo trains and have to be switched repeatedly on marshalling yards between short-distance and long-distance trains. Special investigations had been conducted therefore to determine the frequency of railway accidents and the associated effects on the transport units in both goods train traffic and shunting operations (Fett and Lange 1992).