Estimating the consequences of accidents: the case of automatic train protection in Britain

This paper considers estimates of the number of fatalities per year on rail lines operated by British Railways that could be expected to be saved by the installation of automatic train protection, based on historical data. The authors' preferred estimate is 3.66 fatalities per year, with an estimated 95% confidence interval of 1.44-5.89. It is possible to find orthodox probability distributions that fit the distribution of numbers of fatalities well. FN-graphs are not a suitable means of fitting such distributions.