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�VP Vienna calls for public transport checks

By David Rogers

Vienna's People�s Party (�VP) transport spokesman Wolfgang Gerstl has called for checks on Vienna�s public transport agency after a "dramatic" rise in accidents on public transport in the city.

He said today (Weds) authorities should start checks at Wiener Linien after the number of accidents involving underground trains, buses and trams had "dramatically increased," recently, including three fatal accidents in 2009.

He said there were questions over whether the agency had reacted properly to accidents.

In response, the agency said it had already taken a number of security measures, including installation of high-tech electronic devices on 200 vehicles to prevent their doors from closing on passengers. By May 2010, it added, all trams would have such devices.

The agency also said an agreement with Siemens Austria on the low-floor (ULF) trams it had produced would be reached in the next few weeks. A fire on one ULF tram last year caused Wiener Linien to cancel the remainder of an order for the vehicles.

The calls come just says after it was announced an investigation is underway after a Vienna tram driver failed to stop after he ran over and killed a woman.

Police said the 40-year-old line 26 tram driver had failed to see that he had run down the woman as she crossed tracks in Vienna-Donaustadt a few days ago.

The driver of a tram going in the opposite direction on the line noticed the woman�s body and called police.

And just weeks ago a line 26 tram derailed as it went round a curve near the intersection of Prager Stra�e and Ru�bergstra�e. Wiener Linien said a female driver who was seriously injured in the accident had been going too fast at the time of the incident.

Austrian Times

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