Developing an Analytical Model for the Causes and Potential Consequences of Passenger Train Derailment in Iran Railway

Train derailments are unwanted and undesired incidentsthat happen frequently and disrupt the normal transportation operations. The extent of possible consequences and high occurrence rate of such an incidentencouraged undertaking this research which aims at identification and evaluation of the causes and the potential consequences of the passenger train derailment. The integrated fault-tree/event-tree analysis (FETA) is usually applied for such purposes. Iran Railwayprovided the required data for this study. Due to inherent imprecisions and significant uncertainty of the available data, using the conventional FETA is not appropriate for this research. Therefore, the research has employed a fuzzy approach for fault-tree/event-tree analysis. A detailed modelling for the causes and the potential consequences of the train derailment is developed. The model is then quantified using a combination of available data and linguistic evaluations. Furthermore, to provide a better understanding, the model is evaluated to determine the contribution of different basic incidents, minimal cut-sets and scenarios to the risk and uncertainty of passenger train derailment.
The modeling and the analysis presented in this research assist the decision maker to developproper and practical solutions for reducing the risk through providing a detailed vision for the potential causes and the consequences of the train derailment.