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Transportation Systems Reliability and Safety

The book consists of the following 11 chapters followed by Authors’ Preface:

As the transportation of man and material becomes faster and faster and a key factor in the progress and prosperity of a nation, the fatalities and financial losses also becomes equally important to reckon with. For example, according to the World Health Organization there are about 1.2 million people killed in traffic accidents every year, while 10 million are injured, costing an estimated $520 billion in loss. China being the most populous country of the world, a WHO study estimates that nearly 45,000 people are injured and 680 killed on China's roads each day!  The next populous country, India accounts for 406,730 accidents each year with 86,000 people killed according to India’s Department of Road Transport and Highway. There were nearly 6,420,000 auto accidents in the United States in 2005. The financial cost of these crashes is more than 230 billion dollars. 2.9 million People were injured and 42,636 people killed. About 115 people die every day in vehicle crashes in the United States -- one death every 13 minutes. The picture is equally bad for air and marine accidents. According to Geneva based Aircraft Crashes Record office (ACRO), in 2010, there were 130 air accidents, resulting in 1115 deaths.  

Therefore, undoubtedly, the subject of safety and reliability of transportation systems become an immensely important subject to deal with.

Professor Dhillon, who has the reputation of writing at least 37 books on various specialized topics connected with the subject of quality, reliability, maintenance, engineering management and safety is not an exception not to deal with such an important topic. The book is full of statistics on road, air and marine accidents borrowed from various sources which makes this useful for an interested person to know about. The category of accidents and their reasons are well-documented in the sources and history of these accidents. Human factor has been identified as one of the major causes of transportation accidents. Therefore, it finds due mention in this book. A bibliography of 24 pages listing 408 papers, reports etc. makes a good resource material.  The basics of reliability and safety are naturally discussed for the benefit of a beginner to safety and reliability. The book, as the publisher claims, does not require any background to understand these basics of reliability and safety which is the specialty of most of the books written by Professor Dhillon on these specialized topics.  The book will be found useful for a student who is interested in pursuing the subject as a beginner.

- Krishna B. Misra

This review is published in Vol. 7, No. 4, July 2011