Nevers english summary

At 13:28 on Tuesday 3 February 2009 a regional express train carrying 23 passengers hit the rear driver’s side of a coach carrying 44 passengers (37 nursery school children and 7 accompanying adults) on level crossing no. 4 in Nevers (Nièvre), the coach having encroached on the railway line. The train was travelling from Dijon to Nevers and the coach was travelling from Pouilly-sur-Loire to Nevers.
The collision happened at a speed of 38 km/h. No significant bodily injury was sustained but there was material damage to both vehicles involved.

This accident was directly caused by an error of judgement by the coach driver, who entered the level crossing even though traffic conditions did not guarantee that he could totally clear it. In addition, two factors are likely to have played a part in the accident :
 limited effectiveness of the automatic traffic lane management system ;
 inherent limitations in decision making concerning the train’s emergency breaking.

The results of the analysis led to the examination of two areas open to preventive recommendations :
 traffic queue management near level crossings ;
 detection of an obstacle on the level crossing and train driver information.

Three recommendations were made concerning : assessing the light control system for the progress of queues on level crossings and evaluating automatic detection systems for stationary vehicles on level crossings.