Train travel

Is train travel safe?

Yes. In Britain and most of the EU, a train is one of the safest places to spend a journey. The Department for Transport counts 0.17 deaths among mainline passengers and members of the public per billion passenger km in 2024/25, and 0.20 on average over ten years. That is about 0.03 micromortsMicromortA one-in-a-million chance of death. It lets you compare the risk of very different activities on one scale.More in the glossary per 100 miles, roughly one-sixth of the risk for a car occupant on the same DfT basis and well below a commercial flight per typical trip.

The catch is that the danger sits somewhere most people do not expect. The train itself almost never kills anyone. The platform edge, the stairs and the level crossing do.

How often do trains crash and kill passengers?

Rarely, and unevenly. Between April 2025 and March 2026, Britain's railways had 252 mainline train accidents, from collisions with animals to buffer-stop strikes, and none killed a passenger or member of staff. Over 1.8 billion journeys were made in that year.

Europe has the same pattern: long quiet stretches broken by one terrible event. Eurostat counts 16 railway passengers killed in EU rail accidents in 2024, out of 750 deaths in total. In 2023, the Tempi collision in Greece killed 49 of the 54 passengers who died across the whole EU that year. In 2013, the Santiago de Compostela derailment accounted for 79 of 97. And on 18 January 2026, a high-speed derailment and collision near Adamuz in southern Spain killed 46 people, according to reports in April 2026; Spain's investigators have pointed to a broken rail.

This lumpiness is why we use a ten-year average rather than a single year. One bad crash can multiply a country's annual figure several times without changing the underlying risk much.

Mode (Britain)	Deaths per billion passenger km, 2024	10-year average
Bus or coach	0.10	0.21
Rail (mainline)	0.17	0.20
Car	1.02	1.13
Pedal cycle	14.5	16.6

Source: DfT table RAS0203. Rail figures are for financial years and include passengers and members of the public in stations and on trains, but not trespassers, level crossing users or suicides.

Where the real risk is: the platform

Most passenger deaths on Britain's railways now happen at the gap between train and platform. In 2025/26, three of the mainline's non-workforce deaths happened at the platform-train interface, and one more on a light rail network. Rushing for a train, standing too close to the edge and alcohol come up again and again in accident investigations.

Injuries follow the same pattern. ORR counted 1,294 passengers and public taken to hospital from mainline stations and trains in 2025/26, about one in 1.4 million journeys. Slips, trips and falls caused more than two-thirds of the severe ones. On the London Underground, 93% of hospital injuries happened in stations or at the platform edge.

Level crossings and the tracks are where rail kills

The people railways kill are mostly not on trains. Of the 750 people killed in EU rail accidents in 2024, 66% were people on the tracks without permission and 26% were level crossing users. Britain's mainline recorded 11 level crossing deaths in 2025/26, its highest since 2014/15, and 16 trespass deaths. Suicides on the railway outnumber all accident deaths combined, at 2,357 in the EU in 2024.

None of this counts against the passenger risk on this page, but it matters if you walk or drive across railway lines. Stop, look both ways, and never cross after a train has passed until you are sure a second one is not coming.

How to travel by train more safely

1. Stand behind the yellow line until the train stops. Fast non-stopping trains pull air and loose items towards them.
2. Mind the gap. Look down when boarding, hold the handrail, and take extra care with luggage, pushchairs and wheelchairs.
3. Never run for a closing door or try to hold it open. People dragged along the platform are a recurring cause of death.
4. Go easy on the drink on late trains. Alcohol is a common factor in platform falls.
5. Keep heavy bags low. In a sudden stop or derailment, luggage from overhead racks injures people.
6. Report harassment. In Britain, text British Transport Police on 61016. Pick a busy carriage on late services.
7. Check rail safety abroad. Overcrowded suburban lines in some countries carry far higher risk, mostly from people falling from open doors or crowded roofs.

How we scored it

Fatality risk (96) is very low per 100 miles, and injury risk (90) is low per journey. Controllability (55) is limited because passengers cannot prevent a crash, but platform behaviour accounts for many of the deaths that do happen. Rescue and environment (85) reflects stations near help and the occasional remote derailment. Compare driving for the same distance, or bus travel, which DfT rates about as safe per mile as rail.