Page 25 - Report of the railway accidents investigated in 2023

3. Safety Investigations
3.1 Overview of completed investigations
During the year, the Safety Investigation Bureau received 12 notifications of accidents and 6 notifications of incidents. Of the accidents, 7 took place on level crossings, 5 cases were of a train hitting a person. No serious accidents took place. The report does not contain information about suicides that took place on the railway.
In the previous year, 2022, the Safety Investigation Bureau received notifications of 17 accidents and 7 incidents. In 2021 and 2020 the ESIB was notified of 8 and 10 accidents, respectively. The number of notifications of incidents in the same years was 5 and 1. In the pre-Covid years of 2019, 2018 and 2017 the ESIB received 19, 33 and 24 initial notifications of train accidents, respectively. There were 5, 9 and 3 notifications of incidents in the same years.
At the end of the first month of the year, on 30 January, the safety investigation of the serious accident that took place at Ropka level crossing on 11 March 2022, was completed. The safety investigation report was presented to the safety authority Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority, the railway infrastructure manager Estonian Railways Ltd, the railway transport company AS Eesti Liinirongid (Elron) and the Emergency Centre for the proceedings of recommendations.
Summary of the safety investigations completed in 2023
Annual report 2023
Type of case investigated
Number of cases
Casualties Deaths
Seriously injured
Estimated losses (EUR)
Table 1
Trend compared to last year
Level crossing accident
1
-
2
2 000 000
increase
25