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The Outcomes and Tasks of UK Rail Privatization in case of Safety  

Lee, Yong-Sang (한국철도기술연구원)
Publication Information
Journal of the Korean Society for Railway / v.9, no.2, 2006 , pp. 212-221 More about this Journal
Abstract
This paper examines the outcomes and tasks of U rail privatization especially focusing on the rail safety. Earlier research which focused on the rail safety had little knowledge of the explanations for recent changes of safety scheme. Moreover, they had difficulty making a direct comparison of safety between national rail and the privatized rail. Therefore we are left without a good explanation which has a comprehensive perspective. I attempt to show the outcomes of safety in the rail privatization process and its tasks focusing on the recent fatal accident. This paper argues that the UK's rail safety has a framework which is too complicated with overlapping responsibilities that brought about inefficiency, increasing costs. Especially infrastructure enterprise did not come to play an appropriate role. However, after 2000, the government took charge of setting the strategy for railway safety, and the Office of Rail Regulation covered safety, performance and cost. I explain that these changes present a good opportunity to solve the problem of passing the buck for rail accident. Through the analysis, I find that outcomes of rail privatization in safety are improved comparing the national rail. However, safety performance, for example the collision of structures of cars and looseness of rail should be improved. In future, the problems of fatal accident and a bit of duplicate safe system should be addressed.
Keywords
Argumentation of safety; Changes of safety regime; The Hatfield rail accident; Comparison of safety after privatization;
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  • Reference
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