Would Automated Trains Have Prevented a Fatal Derailment?

When a Metro-North train derailed on Sunday in the Bronx area of New York City, four passengers were killed and 70 injured, sparking a debate over whether a computer-operated train would have prevented the accident.

The speculation surrounds "positive train control," a computer system in development to track train movement from several railroad stations across the country via GPS and satellite radio transmissions. The system doesn't eliminate onboard engineers completely; rather, it's designed to take the reins if it senses danger that the person in charge has not addressed.

The Metro-North train flew off its tracks after taking a curve at 82 miles per hour, when it should have been traveling at just 30 miles per hour. DNAinfo.com reported on Tuesday that the train was traveling at such high speeds because the operator was likely dozing off right before the incident — a dangerous situation that positive train control (PTC) would handle.

The Association of American Railroads' website states that PTC is "designed to prevent train-to-train collisions, derailments caused by excessive speed" and other potential disasters. It slows down the train when the driver does not put on the brakes following several warnings to do so.

"We know that human error cannot be eradicated, but PTC is capable of supplementing the human operation of trains," Kelly Nantel, director of public affairs at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), told Mashable. "These systems provide a safety redundancy by slowing or stopping a train that is not being operated in accordance with signal systems and operating rules."

Terry Williams, another public affairs officer at the National Transportation Safety Board, told Mashable that the NTSB has stated that PTC would have prevented this accident.

Nantel added that her organization has advocated for positive train control for two decades, but not until 2008 did Congress pass the Rail Safety Improvement Act, which mandated that the system be implemented nationwide by 2015.

That mandate applies to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the governing body that oversees Metro-North, but it has reiterated that the timeframe is impossible to meet. The MTA wants to push the deadline back to 2018, citing technological and workload problems associated with installing positive train control on 1,200 miles of track and 1,000 railway cars.

An MTA spokesperson declined to elaborate.

Congress jumped on rail safety in 2008 partly in reaction to the horrific head-on collision between a passenger and freight train in Los Angeles that same year. The crash killed 25 and injured 135. While it's an extreme example of how human error can result in catastrophe, injuries preventable by positive train control are not uncommon. In May of this year, another Metro-North train derailed near Bridgeport, Conn., and rammed into another train, injuring 70.

But automated systems do not make trains crash-proof. The Washington, D.C., area Metro was run by an automated system until June 2009, when the automatic brakes on one train failed to engage and it smashed into the back of another, killing nine and injuring dozens more. All Metro cars in D.C. have been operated by humans since.

Still, the consensus remains that automated trains are safer than ones at risk of human error. The best example of this can perhaps be found in other countries, many of which have started to replace people with computers.

Automated trains run across Europe. Japan's famous bullet trains are not run by humans and can travel up to nearly 200 miles per hour. Africa's first automatic railway system, in Algiers, opened in November 2011.

Railway fatalities and injuries are few and far between in Europe, and when they do happen, they are still generally the result of human error. When a train derailed and killed 79 people this past July in Spain, investigators discovered that automatic brakes had not been installed on a particularly wicked curve of the tracks, and that the driver had far exceeded the posted speed limit when he headed into the turn.

Though the benefits seem clear to some, the United States remains far behind much of the world when it comes to even semi-autonomous trains.

Holly Arthur, a spokesperson for the American Railroad Association, told Mashable that she believes America's delay comes as a result of the purpose of our railway system.

"America's railroads were built for freights," Arthur said. "Over there, it's primarily passenger rail."

She said European railways developed from a need for passengers to travel more quickly from place to place, and that because the average European country is much smaller than the U.S., freight is generally delivered by truck. In America, Arthur said, freight delivery by train was a much better option, but now has resulted in huge amounts of railway that must be integrated into a computerized system.

Image: Christopher Gregory/Getty Images