Fire Safety Countermeasures for Urban Rail Vehicles

摘要

The Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (VNTSC) has analyzed transitsystem fire statistics to learn how often fire and smoke incidents occur on rail transit systems. While the threat of fire accounts for only a small percent of all rail transit incidents, the potential exists for loss of life and significant damage to property. The report identifies those countermeasures necessary to prevent and reduce the severity of transit fires. To identify the necessary countermeasures, the system safety approach was used. The method used (1) fault trees that graphically represented in a sequence of events how a fire develops, (2) an expert in transit safety who examined each sequence of events, and (3) another expert who examined the countermeasures for reducing and preventing transit fires. The system safety approach allowed the VNTSC to examine the relationships between the various physical components and operating procedures of the entire transit system. In addition, potential problems relating to the construction and operating stages of the transit system could be identified. The report identifies five major areas of countermeasures: vehicle/equipment, procedures, human factors/training, environment, and information management/data analysis.