Cable car accident
A cable car accident is a sudden, involuntary and externally acting event in connection with a cable car in which one or more people or property are damaged.
The extent to which near misses, dangerous incidents or extraordinary incidents or dangerous incidents are classified as cable car accidents depends on national regulations.
Cableway safety
Due to the high demands on construction and operation, cable cars are considered a safe means of transport for people and things. In the case of cable cars, however, there is always a potential risk due to their construction and operation. This is additionally reinforced by the passengers' subjective fears, such as B .:
- Fear of a crash or system failure,
- Fear of heights,
- Feeling at the mercy.
However, not all cable car accidents were due to specific operational hazards, as the fire disaster on the Kaprun 2 glacier lift showed, which would have been possible in a similar form with another means of transport.
System-related increase in security
At the same time, there are cable car-specific features that ensure that a potential risk from the effects of third parties is greatly reduced, such as B .:
- Cable cars have their own lane,
- there are basically no crossings at the same level, with the exception of funiculars in urban areas,
- the supervision of a transport is comprehensively and continuously guaranteed.
System-related special hazard potentials from certain cable cars
- In the case of cable cars in circulating operation and surface lifts, you can get on and off while the system is running,
- the active participation of the passenger in the transport is required,
- In the case of drag lifts, the passenger himself is the “vehicle”, which means that even more intensive active participation is required.
Personal injury
At least one injury is usually necessary for physical injury. The following is regularly divided according to the severity of the injury:
- Minor injury
- Severe injury
- death
There are national differences in the classification of when there is a slight or serious injury and when the death of a person can still be assigned to the accident event. For example, minor injuries can be defined as those that result in physical harm but cannot be classified as serious injury or death. The serious injury z. B. be defined as one in which there is at least one bone fracture or permanent damage to a body part or hospital stay of more than a week ( Austria ) or the amputation of a limb ( France ). The death of a person attributable to an accident as such, in which the death immediately or z. B. occurs within two weeks as a result of the accident.
The degree of injury in accidents on cable cars depends on many factors. Are considered over many years
- 78.3% are minor injuries,
- 21.19% serious injuries and
- 0.51% deaths.
International accident statistics for cable cars
International accident statistics for cable cars have only been available for a few years. The extent to which reports are made to the responsible authorities in the respective countries and the scope of the report has an impact on international accident statistics for cable cars. In some cases, the jointly agreed procedure was also changed at the International Conference of Technical Supervisory Authorities (ITTAB). Only in the last few years have the available accident data and surveys been broken down in such a way that they are approximately comparable.
With regard to cable car accidents, international statistics are basically divided into the three types of cable car system, with each level of classification containing further subdivisions that can differ greatly from one country to another.
Sometimes it is very difficult to determine whether or not there is a cable car accident. Example: On September 5, 2005, nine people died in Austria and six were seriously injured when a concrete bucket crashed onto the rope of a cable car during a helicopter transport flight (see: Cable car accident in Sölden ). It is questionable whether this is a cable car accident or an aircraft accident. In the Austrian statistics this accident was taken into account as a cable car accident.
In the case of injured persons, a distinction must also be made as to whether the national statistics only include accidents involving passengers or also those involving cableway employees (some of which are classified as occupational accidents and are not included in them).
Cable cars and cable car accidents also generally do not include conveyor belts (also: treadmill or carpet lift), elevators or inclined elevators .
According to the ITTAB data, the probability of an accident resulting in serious injury or death worldwide was:
| Accidents | 2002-2011 | 2008-2011 |
|---|---|---|
| a serious injury with a number of transports of | 41 million | 1 billion |
| one dead when the number of transports is | 42 million | 1.7 billion |
Annual data overlap due to a change in the ITTAB survey mode in the period from 2008 to 2011.
Causes of accidents
On the basis of statistics from the International Conference of Technical Supervisory Authorities, it emerged for the years 2008/2010/2011 that 95.8% of cable car accidents were caused by the passenger's own fault, 2.7% by third-party faults, external influences and only 1.5% by technical ailments.
To avoid cable car accidents, you can basically:
- technical,
- organizational and
- Training measures are taken.
Technical measures are those in which the causes of accidents are largely prevented or minimized by changing technical specifications, e.g. B. optimize through exits, exit monitoring, reduce station travel speed or increase the order of chairs etc.
Organizational measures are e.g. B. New or optimized signs or regular staff training courses as well as accident evaluations and the resulting accident prevention measures, etc.
Training measures, whereby the passenger is trained and better made aware of the risks and dangers of the transport, are difficult to implement.
Effects of cable car accidents
Change of norms and laws
Cable car accidents regularly mean that laws , ordinances or standards in the cable car industry or the facilities affected by them are checked and changed if necessary and operating instructions have to be adapted. This is usually not noticed directly by the public.
In the longer term, cable car accidents also mean that non-binding standards and guidelines are drawn up internationally, through which a minimum standard is to be achieved.
Mediation Commission
Cable car accidents can lead to long-term problems between the operators, the victims and the bereaved, especially in the event of a particularly incomprehensible approach taken by the causer (e.g. Cavalese 1998 ) or in the event of major events (e.g. cable car accident in Kaprun 2000 ).
In connection with the cable car accident in Kaprun, a so-called mediation commission was set up at the suggestion of the Austrian Ministry of Justice, in which representatives of surviving dependents also participated. This was also a one-off facility in Austria and a voluntary compensation payment to the surviving dependents was agreed within the framework of this commission (13.9 million euros were made available by the Kaprun Gletscherbahnen, the Generali insurance company and the Republic of Austria and to the relatives paid out).
Media processing
Spectacular cable car accidents repeatedly lead to media coverage. So was z. With regard to the cable car accident in Kaprun, for example, it was dealt with in the eighth episode of the first season of the English-language documentary series from seconds before the accident , and the writer Elfriede Jelinek also used this accident as an opportunity to come to terms with it in the play In the Alps .
literature
- Patrik Bergamin, Liability of the mountain railway company for summer sports accidents in the catchment area of the railway , Bamberg 2000, dissertation University of St. Gallen No. 2396.
- Michaela Dietrich, Claims for damages in cable car accidents according to the EKHG with special consideration of the judicature , Innsbruck 2006, dissertation.
- Artur Doppelmayr Food for thought on the functional fulfillment of monocable gondolas: Project planning, construction and operation in the safety control loop system , Dornbirn 1998, Verlag WIR Public Relations ISBN 978-3-9500815-0-3 .
- Doris Fröhlich, The most important causes of ski accidents person , Graz 2010, diploma thesis online .
- Christoph Haidlen, The Austrian Cable Car Law - Handbook for Practice , Vienna 2010, Linde Verlag, 2nd edition.
- Andreas Köfler, Creation of a manual for a crisis situation: Behavior and procedure in the event of accidents on cable cars at the manufacturer , Graz 2002, diploma thesis at the Technical University of Graz.
- Stefan Margreth, Lukas Stoffel, Mark Schaer, Consideration of the avalanche and snow pressure hazard in cable cars: a guide for practice , Davos 2015, WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research, WSL Reports, Issue 28, online
- Sabine Elisabeth Voith, risk culture and crisis sensitivity with special consideration of the risk perception of cable car companies , Graz 2010, diploma thesis online .
Web links
- “Safety requirements for cable cars, findings from accidents and their consequences” , by Peter Sedivy.
See also
- List of cable car accidents
- Cableway safety
- International meeting of technical supervisory authorities
Individual evidence
- ↑ See z. E.g .: ÖNORM EN ISO 12100: 2011, Safety of machines - General principles for design - Risk assessment and risk reduction; ÖNORM EN 12929-1: 2015, Safety requirements for cable cars for passenger traffic - General provisions; ÖNORM EN ISO 12100: 2011, Safety of machines - General design principles - Risk assessment and risk reduction or ÖNORM EN 1090 as well as booklets 25-1 and 25-2 of the "Recommendation for the creation of hazard images and recording of hazardous situations" issued by Study Committee No. 1 of the OITAF for the safety analysis of cable cars ”.
- ↑ Presentation "Safety requirements for cable cars, findings from accidents and consequences" by Peter Sedivy on the occasion of the operations manager seminar at Zauchensee, 2016, p. 16.
- ↑ Presentation "Safety requirements for cable cars, findings from accidents and consequences" by Peter Sedivy on the occasion of the operations manager seminar at Zauchensee, 2016, p. 21 f.
- ↑ International Conference of Technical Supervisory Authorities (ITTAB) is an annual conference of technical authority representatives and experts from many countries around the world. The 65th conference took place in 2015.
- ↑ Presentation "Safety requirements for cable cars, findings from accidents and consequences" by Peter Sedivy on the occasion of the operations manager seminar at Zauchensee, 2016, p. 2.
- ↑ Information according to the presentation "Safety requirements for cable cars, findings from accidents and consequences" by Peter Sedivy on the occasion of the operations manager seminar at Zauchensee, 2016, p. 17.
- ↑ Presentation "Safety requirements for cable cars, findings from accidents and consequences" by Peter Sedivy on the occasion of the operations manager seminar at Zauchensee, 2016, p. 28 ff.
- ^ Documentation Seconds from disaster (about the catastrophe on Youtube, English).
- ↑ City Theater Ingolstadt | Program | Pieces | Info. (No longer available online.) In: www.theater.ingolstadt.de. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016 ; accessed on November 11, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
