[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by getbak

I wonder how that compares to other LRT and subway systems across North America and around the world?

It's lower than I would have expected.

Comparison to Vancouver

TransLink estimated that 117.7 million passengers boarded SkyTrain’s three lines in 2014, and it claimed that trains were on time, within two minutes, 93.4 percent of the time. The Scott Road fatality was the second of 2015 at a Surrey station and the 75th since the driverless trains went into service in 1985.

Most of the deaths have been ruled suicide, but could some, or all, have been prevented?

The October 2014 independent review by former Toronto-area GO Transit head Gary McNeil, which was ordered after the two major July 2014 SkyTrain service outages, recommended more eyes and ears on cars and platforms. So did the 1993 passenger-safety review by Toronto Transit Consultants. The latter report recommended attendants be deployed on all trains during morning and evening peak periods to respond more quickly to passenger-assistance and guideway-intrusion alarms.

Toronto Transit Consultants found surveillance cameras did a good job of monitoring fare machines, escalators, and elevators at SkyTrain stations but little else. It recommended “pan-tilt-zoom” cameras in downtown’s four tunnel stations. “With respect to platform coverage, it is understood that additional cameras are planned in order to improve coverage.”

Little had changed in platform monitoring by 2014, when McNeil’s report said staffing and surveillance were still inadequate.

“When a major service delay occurs today, there is not enough STA [SkyTrain attendant] staff available to effectively deal with evacuation,” McNeil wrote. He noted that there were only 40 to 45 attendants and supervisors stretched across the system last July 17 and 21. McNeil recommended greater visibility for frontline staff, but he didn’t say how many should be deployed at any one time. He did recommend spending $5 million over two years on better surveillance cameras for the Expo and Millennium lines, including closed-circuit cameras focused on the edge of platforms. However, “this could be deferred if improved response times to delays occur.”

Platform-edge cameras might have helped save a life on March 21 at Scott Road Station.

Statistics from the B.C. Coroners Service spanning 1985 to May 2015 show 75 deaths on SkyTrain tracks, of which at least 10 were accidental. The Commercial-Broadway (11) and Main Street (10) stations had the most deaths. (None have been recorded on the Canada Line.) Through mid-February 2008, 32 victims were male; 25 of the dead were between 19 and 39 years of age. Nine perished in 1994, the deadliest year on record; in 2014, four died.

http://www.straight.com/life/458271/...eaths-examined

Considering Calgary's LRT is at grade, it's less that I would've thought as well.