Mr. Chair, members of the committee, good afternoon.
Thank you for inviting the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, or TSB, to discuss the important topic of rail safety.
As you know, our mandate and sole purpose is to advance transportation safety in the air, marine, pipeline and rail modes that are under federal jurisdiction by conducting independent investigations; identifying safety deficiencies, causes and contributing factors; making recommendations; and publishing our reports.
The TSB is independent, and operates at arm’s length from other government departments and agencies. We report to Parliament through the President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada. This lets us be impartial, free from any real or perceived external influence.
It is also important to clarify what the TSB does not do. We do not assign fault, nor do we determine civil or criminal liability.
Rail safety continues to be top of mind for the TSB. I’d like to start by sharing some rail safety statistics. According to the TSB's annual report in 2020, 1,192 rail occurrences were reported to the TSB, including 965 accidents and 227 incidents. Of these, the 965 accidents represent a 23% decrease from 2019 and an 11% decrease from the 10-year average.
The main-track accident rate in 2020 was 2.7 accidents per million main-track train miles, down from 3.3 in 2019 but above the 10-year average of 2.4. A total of 59 rail fatalities were reported. Two of these involved railway employees; 39 were trespasser fatalities and 18 were crossing accident fatalities.
Regarding railway crossings, we recently launched an in-depth safety investigation to examine factors contributing to an observed increase in the rate of accidents involving motor vehicles, specifically during the winter months.
We will issue our preliminary 2021 statistics shortly and would be pleased to table these data with the committee when available. I will mention that, sometimes, previous years' stats change as a result of re-categorization or re-examination, so there may be some differences from the numbers I gave you today.
We are in the process of updating progress on the TSB’s Watchlist 2020, which outlines the key issues that need to be addressed to make Canada’s transportation system even safer. The current list includes two rail-specific issues: following signal indications, wherein train crews do not consistently recognize and follow railway signals, which poses a risk of train collisions or derailments; and uncontrolled movements, which can create high-risk situations with catastrophic consequences, particularly if they involve dangerous goods, as was seen in Lac-Mégantic. In 2020, there were 50 occurrences involving an uncontrolled movement of rolling stock, down from 2019, when there were 78 such occurrences.
Other watch-list issues affecting rail safety include the multimodal issues of fatigue management in freight train operations, safety management and regulatory surveillance. While safety management systems have been required for federally regulated railways since 2001, our investigations have identified numerous shortcomings, where hazards were not identified and effective risk mitigation measures were not taken. Furthermore, Transport Canada’s follow-up and intervention are not always effective at identifying and changing unsafe railway operating practices.
Since we were created in 1990, the board has issued 149 recommendations to regulators and the rail industry. As of September 30, 2021, 91.3% of the responses to these rail recommendations have received the board’s highest rating of “fully satisfactory”.
However—and I want to emphasize this—there is still much that can be done to improve rail safety, especially with respect to the issues that underpin our watch-list. The oldest active outstanding rail recommendation dates back to 2013, and we're just starting the annual reassessment process of progress made on outstanding recommendations. We will provide an update in our annual report to Parliament, and the results will help to inform TSB’s Watchlist 2022.
Another source of input to inform the next Watchlist involves our consultations with industry stakeholders where we discuss the progress that has been made on existing issues and seek their insight on emerging issues.
We have largely completed our consultations with the air and marine sectors last fall and will be meeting with rail industry stakeholders in the coming months.
Thank you very much. We are ready to answer your questions.