For years, the official said the unmanned railway crossings – lacking barriers and gatekeepers – have been sites of deadly collisions between trains and road vehicles or pedestrians
ISLAMABAD, Jul 4 (DNA): Pakistan Railways has completed the conversion of around 175 unmanned level crossings into manned level crossings to improve public safety and control the accidents in the country.
“This effort is part of a broader strategy to address a persistent safety crisis on the rail network, historically plagued by accidents at unmanned crossings,” an official in the Ministry of Railways told APP.
For years, the official said the unmanned railway crossings – lacking barriers and gatekeepers – have been sites of deadly collisions between trains and road vehicles or pedestrians.
He said these accidents, often resulting from the absence of warning systems or safety protocols, have caused numerous fatalities and injuries, generating significant public concern and pressure for systemic change.
Keeping in view, he said that Pakistan Railways enacted the Railway Level Crossing Policy in 2019. A cornerstone of this policy is the outright ban on constructing new unmanned crossings across the entire network. The focus has shifted squarely towards upgrading existing hazardous crossings, he added.
He said the scale of the challenge is evident in the current statistics, out of total 2,777 railway level crossings in the country, a concerning 1,416 remain unmanned and inherently riskier.
The official said that only 1,361 are currently manned, staffed by gatekeepers who operate the barriers to control road traffic as trains approach.
He said the responsibility for financing the conversion of unmanned crossings into manned ones falls to provincial and district road-owning authorities, as mandated by Section 12 of the century-old Railways Act, 1890.
The official said that Pakistan Railways is actively pursuing these provincial governments for sponsorship agreements to fund the ongoing conversions as earliest.
To maximize the safety impact, he said the authorities have identified and prioritized the 550 most vulnerable unmanned crossings nationwide for urgent upgrade.
However, the official said that the conversion of these critical sites remains contingent on securing the necessary funding commitments from the respective provincial governments.
