Daegu Transportation Corporation has come up with a prescription to ‘lower speed’ to eradicate escalator falling accidents that frequently occur within urban railway stations. As the risk of safety accidents increases along with the increase in the elderly population, the intention is to prioritize the safety of citizens over efficiency.
According to the construction on the 7th, the construction will sequentially lower the operating speed of 26 escalators with frequent accidents from the 12th to the 22nd. The corporation has been implementing various preventive measures such as deploying senior safety guards, improving signage to increase visibility, and installing logo lights, but as fall accidents among the elderly continued to occur in some sections, additional measures were prepared.
In fact, the effectiveness of speed control has been proven with data. As a result of the corporation lowering the speed of 63 accident-prone escalators from 25 m per minute to 20 m per minute over the past year and three months, the accident rate decreased by a whopping 44%. On the other hand, in places where the existing speed was maintained, accidents increased by 21%, supporting the close relationship between speed and accident occurrence.
According to this measure, the speed of 19 vehicles with a driving distance of 30 m or less among the 26 vehicles at high risk of accidents will be reduced to 20 m per minute. In particular, the seven vehicles that had gentle slopes or alternative stairs but had frequent accidents will have their speed drastically reduced to 15 meters per minute to increase safety.
In order to raise the safety awareness of users, the corporation plans to broadcast an accident prevention video produced by the Korea Elevator Safety Corporation about 170 times a day through the route information bulletin board in the station to draw citizens’ attention.
Kim Ki-hyuk, CEO of the corporation, said, “15 meters per minute is a speed that may feel somewhat frustrating for users, but it is an inevitable choice to protect the lives and safety of citizens.” He added, “We ask for active cooperation from citizens to establish a safe urban railway culture.”
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