ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[KevinL]

 I don’t understand how passenger trains could need to slow to 25mph while it’s still considered perfectly safe for freight to blow through at 125mph.

It's perfectly understandable - freight goods are not human lives. In essence, there was a fractionally higher risk of derailment or other incident, enough that it could be seriously deadly to a train packed with people - but the risk is economic, not human, with goods and does not require a change to limits.

[danbrotherston]

 I don’t understand how passenger trains could need to slow to 25mph while it’s still considered perfectly safe for freight to blow through at 125mph.

It's perfectly understandable - freight goods are not human lives. In essence, there was a fractionally higher risk of derailment or other incident, enough that it could be seriously deadly to a train packed with people - but the risk is economic, not human, with goods and does not require a change to limits.

I believe that a freight train is still operated by people and operates around other people.

Not to mention that a freight train is heavier and more likely to derail than a lighter passenger train.

[plam]

Yeah, I have a feeling that some railway regulations are pretty bullshit, I mean, we have our own railway requirements that basically produce more expensive, less safe trains than in Europe, just because that's the way it's always been done here.

But ultimately, I don't know how you end up with regulations like for airplanes, which seem to be largely well designed and evidence based. For ground transit, we have train regulation and car regulations both of which seem to be an abject failure, one because it kills enormous numbers of people, the other because it kills enormous numbers of people by forcing people into the other mode.

I might suggest some regulatory capture. Usually a good bet.

[danbrotherston]

Yeah, I have a feeling that some railway regulations are pretty bullshit, I mean, we have our own railway requirements that basically produce more expensive, less safe trains than in Europe, just because that's the way it's always been done here.

But ultimately, I don't know how you end up with regulations like for airplanes, which seem to be largely well designed and evidence based. For ground transit, we have train regulation and car regulations both of which seem to be an abject failure, one because it kills enormous numbers of people, the other because it kills enormous numbers of people by forcing people into the other mode.

I might suggest some regulatory capture. Usually a good bet.

Who has captured...bad rail regulations aren't good for anyone I would think.

[plam]

I might suggest some regulatory capture. Usually a good bet.

Who has captured...bad rail regulations aren't good for anyone I would think.

Usually it's the people who benefit from the status quo... freight companies who don't want to spend money upgrading their systems and want to keep out competitors?

[tomh009]

But ultimately, I don't know how you end up with regulations like for airplanes, which seem to be largely well designed and evidence based.

See Exhibit A: FAA certification of the Boeing 737 MAX. The process was neither well-designed nor evidence-based. As a result, hundreds of people died.

The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.

[ijmorlan]

 I don’t understand how passenger trains could need to slow to 25mph while it’s still considered perfectly safe for freight to blow through at 125mph.

It's perfectly understandable - freight goods are not human lives. In essence, there was a fractionally higher risk of derailment or other incident, enough that it could be seriously deadly to a train packed with people - but the risk is economic, not human, with goods and does not require a change to limits.

OK, but 5 times as fast?

I can see how different trains might need to have slightly different speed limits; let’s just say up to a factor of 2 maybe. But 5 times?

[danbrotherston]

But ultimately, I don't know how you end up with regulations like for airplanes, which seem to be largely well designed and evidence based.

See Exhibit A: FAA certification of the Boeing 737 MAX. The process was neither well-designed nor evidence-based. As a result, hundreds of people died.

The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.

The FAA certification of the 737 MAX was flawed. Those flaws have been studied, and are working to be corrected. Hundreds of people died, or, approximately the same number of people who died as a result of cars in the past 2-3 hours.  Even if we just look at Canada, you're looking at the last month or two of road deaths.

This is the kind of exception which proves the rule, yes, our systems are failable, but some of our systems are actually working reasonably well, and improving, while others are a complete failure (although I won't argue that road safety isn't improving in *some* places).

[jamincan]

See Exhibit A: FAA certification of the Boeing 737 MAX. The process was neither well-designed nor evidence-based. As a result, hundreds of people died.

The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.

The FAA certification of the 737 MAX was flawed. Those flaws have been studied, and are working to be corrected. Hundreds of people died, or, approximately the same number of people who died as a result of cars in the past 2-3 hours.  Even if we just look at Canada, you're looking at the last month or two of road deaths.

This is the kind of exception which proves the rule, yes, our systems are failable, but some of our systems are actually working reasonably well, and improving, while others are a complete failure (although I won't argue that road safety isn't improving in *some* places).

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. The 737 MAX saga, which laid bare the regulatory capture of the FAA, somehow demonstrates that the system is working as intended and improving?

It seems to me that it clearly demonstrates that the system was not working as intended and it was only with immense public scrutiny and basically the entire world disregarding the FAA's leadership on the matter and taking steps to ground the 737MAX that the FAA finally took steps to correct the situation with the 737MAX. That's not how the system is supposed to work. Furthermore, it's not clear to me that the US government has actually corrected the core problems at the FAA that lead to this situation. It's not remarkable that a person or agency will act well when under public scrutiny, it's quite another thing for them to act well as a matter of course.

[bgb_ca]

I just passed block line and they got a lot of heavy equipment out, including the mark IV or whatever that track tamper machine is.

[tomh009]

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. The 737 MAX saga, which laid bare the regulatory capture of the FAA, somehow demonstrates that the system is working as intended and improving?

It seems to me that it clearly demonstrates that the system was not working as intended and it was only with immense public scrutiny and basically the entire world disregarding the FAA's leadership on the matter and taking steps to ground the 737MAX that the FAA finally took steps to correct the situation with the 737MAX. That's not how the system is supposed to work. Furthermore, it's not clear to me that the US government has actually corrected the core problems at the FAA that lead to this situation. It's not remarkable that a person or agency will act well when under public scrutiny, it's quite another thing for them to act well as a matter of course.

Right. This was the point I was trying to make. Air travel regulations aren't perfect, either.

[danbrotherston]

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. The 737 MAX saga, which laid bare the regulatory capture of the FAA, somehow demonstrates that the system is working as intended and improving?

It seems to me that it clearly demonstrates that the system was not working as intended and it was only with immense public scrutiny and basically the entire world disregarding the FAA's leadership on the matter and taking steps to ground the 737MAX that the FAA finally took steps to correct the situation with the 737MAX. That's not how the system is supposed to work. Furthermore, it's not clear to me that the US government has actually corrected the core problems at the FAA that lead to this situation. It's not remarkable that a person or agency will act well when under public scrutiny, it's quite another thing for them to act well as a matter of course.

Right. This was the point I was trying to make. Air travel regulations aren't perfect, either.

Nobody is saying airline regulations are perfect.  But they are a million times more effective than road regulations, and yet get a million times the scrutiny.  

are you suggesting that because airline regulations aren’t perfect, that they can’t inform how to improve other regulations?

[jamincan]

Right. This was the point I was trying to make. Air travel regulations aren't perfect, either.

Nobody is saying airline regulations are perfect.  But they are a million times more effective than road regulations, and yet get a million times the scrutiny.  

are you suggesting that because airline regulations aren’t perfect, that they can’t inform how to improve other regulations?

I'm saying that the 737Max is not the exception that proves the rule. The 737Max demonstrates a systemic failure of the FAA's regulatory function and to say that it is merely an exception in an otherwise functional system is extremely naïve.

[tomh009]

And it's not really comparable. The number of aircraft in use is far lower, the pilots are highly trained and certified, flying time per day is limited, and traffic is directed by highly professional air traffic control, all things that would not be feasible for private vehicles.

Fatalities per million passenger-miles are about 10x for road traffic as compared to air traffic. So, even by that metric, and ignoring the fundamental differences (as above), it's nowhere near "a million times".

And I never said that we couldn't improve. I'm not sure that air traffic regulation is the absolute best place to learn, though.

[danbrotherston]

Nobody is saying airline regulations are perfect.  But they are a million times more effective than road regulations, and yet get a million times the scrutiny.  

are you suggesting that because airline regulations aren’t perfect, that they can’t inform how to improve other regulations?

I'm saying that the 737Max is not the exception that proves the rule. The 737Max demonstrates a systemic failure of the FAA's regulatory function and to say that it is merely an exception in an otherwise functional system is extremely naïve.

Certainly the 737Max is not the first aircraft to have an airworthyness directive issued, but I think it's absurd to argue that the FAA's regulatory funciton is a failure, systemic or otherwise.

Why is it naive to look at crash statistics and understand that a) commercial aviation is, by every measure, the safest way to travel, and b) been growing more and more safe ever year as a result of standards and regulations introduced by the FAA.