Railway safety inspection: The year 2020 brought the least accidents in 17 years

The lowest number of emergencies in 2020 was mainly influenced by fewer tram, trolleybus, cableway and underground accidents, where the difference between the year 2019 and 2020 was 910 emergencies. The railway also experienced a decrease in emergencies last year. They dropped by 78 cases compared to 2019. The highest death toll on railways (28 people) and the most emergencies (134) were registered in July, which makes it a month with the highest number of emergencies in the last 5 years. In the long-term, last year’s number of emergencies was the lowest since 2004.

The total death toll on railways decreased by 2 (1 %) cases and the number of injuries increased by 41 (17 %) cases compared to 2019. According to the statistics provided by the Rail Safety Inspection Office, the most influencing factor in terms of death toll each year is the train - person collision (walking on a railway track, crossing rails outside level crossings). While in 2020 the number of these cases and those killed in them was almost identical to 2019, 78 % of these accidents in 2020 resulted in death.

The Rail Safety Inspection Office registered a significant decrease in the number of collisions on level crossings (by 19 %), which had a positive impact on the death toll, even though only by 9 %. Similarly, to the previous year, the most tragic month in 2020 was July with 26 collisions and 7 deaths.

For more information, see attached the emergency statistics of the Railway Safety Inspection Office (available only in the Czech language).