Safety must come first on super-fast rail
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There is no doubt that China is fascinating the world with its fast and marvelous development of high-speed rail. I was already impressed when China increased the average speed of the conventional lines to 200 kilometers per hour, which was done for the whole country in a very short period of time. China has developed a lot of new infrastructure and links in a very limited time.
Some say that it has taken China six years to achieve what the West achieved in 40 years. This is mainly because of two issues. One issue is that it is easier for China to benefit from the experiences of other countries which have been the pioneers, such as Japan, France, Italy and Germany. There are a lot of experience curves that have been accumulated.
When China began to develop its high-speed rail, a lot of experiences were shared with Chinese engineers.
In my previous position, I organized training sessions and training workshops for Chinese engineers on high-speed rail in France. So there has been a lot of sharing of information.
The other issue is that the decision to develop high-speed rail was taken at the top level of China and considered to have national importance. It is easier in China to implement this type of decision.
A few days ago, on December 3, a new Chinese high-speed record was set by a CRH-380A train, which reached a national record of 486.1 km per hour. The safety of China's constantly pushing the speed limits has been controversial and is questioned by many countries.
Safety is a very delicate issue and the major concern of all railway operators. It is true that so far all high-speed railway operators have developed their programs with total safety, and there has never been a casualty. But it doesn't mean there will be no risk for China.
In this domain, everyone must be very modest and prudent. The growth of the developments is accompanied by the growth of safety concerns. If China develops high-speed rail quickly, it needs to increase safety awareness even faster. Safety must always come before other concerns.
It is expected that China will have 13,000 kilometers of high-speed track by the end of 2012.
