Bogor, 26 July 2023. The Directorate General of Railways through the Directorate of Railway Safety continues to work on improving safety services for train operations. For this purpose, the Directorate of Railway Safety has organized Safe Emergency Handling and Mitigation Technical Guidance activities on Railway Infrastructure due to Disasters and Accidents. The activity which was held in Bogor on 24 - 26 July 2023 was attended by 100 participants from the internal Ministry of Transportation, Bogor Transportation Office, and PT Kereta Api Indonesia. The technical guidance activities were conducted through discussions and questions and answers in class, as well as field reviews.

In her speech, Director of Railway Safety, Erni Basri said that the railway transportation sub-sector has a very important role in society because it is dominant and involves the general public. However, these benefits will not apply and even turn into a loss when operations are disrupted due to disasters or accidents, resulting in material losses and even casualties.

Head of Sub-Directorate of Engineering and Safety Improvement, Danan Widhonarko, in his remarks also added that Railway Human Resources both regulators and operators should work together to minimize the negative impact or losses due to natural disasters or accidents as well as possible with proper handling according to the situation and conditions.

In Law Number 24/2007, what is meant by disaster emergency response is a series of activities carried out immediately at the time of the disaster to deal with the adverse effects caused, which include rescue and evacuation of casualties, property, fulfillment of basic needs, protection, rescue, and restoration of infrastructure and facilities.

The material in the first session of the technical assistance was delivered by Dimas Reska Putra, Coordinator of Railways and Railway Land Region II Directorate of Railway Infrastructure, who provided material on policies and laws, and regulations for emergency handling of railroad infrastructure. In the event of a train accident, the organizers of railway infrastructure and the organizers of railway facilities, according to Law Number 23/2007 must do the following:

1. Taking action for traffic smoothness and safety;
2. Handling accident casualties;
3. Relocating passengers, baggage, and delivery goods to other trains or other modes of transportation to continue the journey to the destination station;
4. Reporting accidents to the minister, provincial government, or regency/city government;
5. Announcing the accident to service users and the public;
6. Immediately normalizing train traffic after an initial investigation by the authorities; and
7. Managing insurance claims for accident casualties.

The second session was presented by Paulus Kurniawan from the Bridge and Tunnel Safety Commission who explained about construction safety assessment in the design and implementation of emergency handling of railroad infrastructure. Followed by the third speaker by Muhammad Reza Juli Utama, Sub Coordinator for Earthquake Early Warning Systems and Networks, Deputy for Geophysics - BMKG. The last material on aspects of planning and implementation of temporary and permanent construction for emergencies in railway infrastructure, risk management and assessment in temporary and permanent construction activities was delivered by Sri Atmaja P. Rosyidi, a lecturer at Muhammadiyah University of Yogyakarta.

On the second day, participants visited the BH 107 KM bridge. 17+741 that crosses Bogor - Sukabumi and the train landslide site at Bogor Nirwana Residence, KM. 2+600/700 Bogor - Sukabumi. The participants learned about landslide prone area assessments.

 

This technical activity is expected to add insight related to emergency handling and safe mitigation of railroad infrastructure due to disasters or accidents, and can improve the performance of regulators and operators.