Sci&Tech History

Lately, numbers of transportation accident in Indonesia increase, one of them is train. Maybe we can blame age of the railways, or standard operating system which doesn’t qualify the safety standard, or maybe because the operator which fall asleep during operating hours. What/who ever we choose to blame, won’t change the condition unless serious attention and change is made.

In U.K, train accidents also occur. Two major rail crashes happened, the one near Paddington in 1999 and the one in Hatfield in 2000. The public blame the crash is caused by the British railways privatization which triggered in 1993, by published the green paper New Opportunities for the Railways: the Privatization of British Railways. Since British Railways was privatized, some resistance occur from staff which influence the quality of service, and passengers which felt to be treat rather as an “users” than “customers.” In a survey which conducted by the Guardian in 1999, it is showed that 70% of those interviewed felt that Railtrack should returned to public ownership.

As an answer for this resistance, Network Rail was formed in October 2002. The Network Train is a not-for-dividend organization taking over Railtrack’s assets and tasks. Beside that, the government also hires the facilities of “Special Purpose Vehicles” which finance, deliver and manage the facilities. Based on The Strategic Rail Authority(2002), things that caused the accident is, “experience and skills have been lost as companies have downsized.”

The privatization of British Railways maybe can be seen not only as a mistake, but also as a learning process. The failure which occur was always be evaluated, and significant change was made to avoid the same mistake.

What about Indonesia?

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