A Taichung MRT train on Wednesday crashed into a crane boom that fell onto the tracks, leaving one person dead and 10 injured. The incident has sparked discussion about whether it could have been prevented, and how to avoid such accidents.
The crane boom fell from the top of a 31-floor building and crashed through the noise barrier covering the tracks about 150m from the Feng-le Park Station, and a Taichung Mass Rapid Transit Corp (TMRT) train departing from the station collided with the crane boom.
Station surveillance footage showed that the boom fell onto the tracks at 12:27:04pm. The MRT train stopped at the station at 12:27:05pm, and the platform security guard, who saw the fallen crane boom, shouted to the attendant in the train’s first cabin to halt the train, but she did not notice. The train doors closed at 12:27:22pm and it left the station at 12:27:30pm, hitting the crane boom at 12:27:45pm.
From surveillance footage inside the train and TMRT’s explanation, the MRT attendant, after seeing the obstacle, called the operation control center on a wireless radio and tried to retrieve a key from her bag to open a cover to access the manual control panel, but she fell over as the train crashed.
Many people asked whether in the 41 seconds from when the boom hit the tracks to when the train crashed into it, TMRT could have stopped the train from leaving the station.
City councilors said that the operation control center received 16 automatic warning signals about power system abnormalities in the six seconds after the boom fell onto the tracks, but it did not identify the problem in time.
As the Taichung MRT’s Green Line is operated by a driverless automatic system, TMRT said its trains each have a 2m obstacle-detection pole in front, but an emergency brake can only be triggered when the pole touches an obstacle on the tracks. Although the train attendant and station manager reported to the operation control center, it takes 20 seconds for the center to halt a train. There are emergency stop buttons, an emergency intercom and an emergency door handle in the train cabins, but the train only stops at the next station if the stop button is pressed while it is running, TMRT said.
The company that dispatched the crew operating the crane, Highwealth Construction — which, together with its subsidiaries, had 10 major construction accidents in the past five years, resulting in 10 deaths — is being blamed for the accident. The company’s other construction sites have been ordered to shut down for safety inspections, while the people involved are facing charges of endangering public safety and negligence resulting in death and injury.
However, the accident also highlights flaws in the Taichung MRT system’s design and emergency response mechanism, including the lack of a vision-based obstacle detection system that can extend the detection parameters, the lack of a manual emergency stop button on the platform accessible to station personnel, and flawed standard operating procedures.
TMRT said in a preliminary report on Friday that it would introduce a pointing and calling method — commonly used in Japanese railways and industry to reduce mistakes — and set up a standardized danger gesture for station platform personnel. They would have to stop carriage doors from closing to stall the train leaving the station, to buy time for it to be halted. Train attendants would also be given a designated place to store the key to access the manual control panel.
Local governments have started safety checks on urban rail systems, as well as safety inspections on Highwealth Construction’s construction sites. However, officials must ensure that design flaws are improved, standard operating procedures are revised and practiced, and inspections on construction sites are conducted frequently.
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