Hoboken Probe Stymied, But Jury Can Still Find Negligence

Railroad Didn't Install GPS-Only Speed Control While Waiting For Better PTC Type
 
 
Waiting For PTC Will Cause Accidents and Cost Lives
Waiting For PTC Will Cause Accidents and Cost Lives
WASHINGTON - Oct. 3, 2016 - PRLog -- The investigation into the Hoboken train crash has been stymied by the engineer's claim that he doesn't remember what happened, and the discovery that the rear data recorder was not functioning, but a jury may still be able to find negligence and impose liability.

        Negligence by the railroad would likely still be found to be the cause of the Hoboken tragedy, since it appears that the train was traveling at a very high speed with no effort to slow down, the signals were working, and railroad braking systems are designed to be "fail safe." says former engineer/inventor and now public interest law professor John Banzhaf.

        "Except in the unlikely event that the brakes were applied but completely failed to even slow the train, the most likely cause is the failure to have in place a system which would automatically apply the brakes if the engineer for health-related or any other reason failed to slow it down as required," says Banzhaf.

        He notes that heart attacks, strokes, and other medical emergencies which could suddenly incapacitate the engineer are clearly foreseeable, so, to avoid negligence. the overall train control system should be designed to deal with such situations, argues Banzhaf.

        One system designed to do just that is known as Positive Train Control [PTC].

        But PTC is so expensive that the rule of negligence which usually requires entities to take precautions against occurrences which are reasonable foreseeable would not apply if the costs of prevention by using PTC greatly exceed the anticipated cost savings from preventing accidents.

       But the railroad could still be found negligent because it apparently failed to even consider a much simpler and less expensive automatic GPS-only braking system which could have been put into place much earlier and prevent virtually all such tragedies, says Banzhaf.

        Moreover, the fact that the government had mandated a much more complex and expensive PTC system, and given the operator at least until 2018 to install it, would not affect this conclusion, since government-mandated safety requirements set a floor but not a ceiling regarding injury prevention.

        In other words, juries can and have held companies liable, despite their compliance with all applicable safety standards, if another measure would have saved lives at a reasonable cost.

        So the train crash in Hoboken shows once again the need for that type of system to automatically limit trains to established safe speeds if the engineer for any reason fails to do so, especially if it is one which is so simple that it can be installed long before any PTC system could become operational.

        According to early reports, the train was apparently traveling at full speed when it crashed into the Hoboken station - "it never slowed down," one witness said - rather than the designated safe speed which is about the rate at which people normally walk.

        Rather than waiting for so-called positive train control [PTC] systems which may not be operational even by 2018, there is a much simpler and much less expensive GPS-only speed control system for trains which could have been put into operation much more quickly, and at only a fraction of the cost of PTC.

        It is also so simple that its basic principle is already in use in millions of automobiles and trucks now on the roads, says this MIT-educated engineer and inventor now turned public interest law professor.

       One reason that PTC is so expensive, time-consuming to establish, and difficult to install is that it is designed to do far more than the simplest but most vital task of keeping trains from exceeding the speed limit - e.g., also dealing with switches left in the wrong position, hijackings, natural disasters, etc.

        It is therefore a very complex system which requires not just GPS units in each locomotive, but also many thousands of signaling devices along sections of about 140,000 miles of track which transmit cab codes to antennas on railroad cars.

        Unfortunately, for PTC to work properly, there must be close cooperation and coordination between the many different entities which own the different tracks to which the devices are attached, and the owners of over 500 different railroad companies which may run on these many different tracks.

        All of the devices must also be able to communicate seamlessly with each other, and much of the delay in installing the system has been caused by the need to unify dozens of different systems, obtain permission to use the radio frequencies necessary for the devices to flawlessly exchange information, and related coordination problems, says Banzhaf.

        Yet there are simple navigational devices available today for less than $200 for automobiles and trucks which would keep trains from going too fast.  Their operation does not depend on any additional devices installed along tracks or highways, nor upon the type of radio communications PTC requires.

        Since automobile  GPS units can show not only the speed at which the car is moving, but also the speed limit on that section of the road, they could also be mounted on each locomotive and prevent the posted speed from being exceeded - completely independent of the tracks on which they are traveling, and without the need for any other sensing devices, cooperation with other companies, communication between devices, etc.

        From an engineering point of view, says Banzhaf, there is no reason why these car-type GPS control systems could not have be mounted on trains already, long before PTC could become operational.

http://banzhaf.net/  jbanzhafATgmail.com  @profbanzhaf

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