“She tried to shift responsibilities with her statement to investigative committee of the Parliament on the tragedy of Tempe the president of RAS, Ioanna Tsiaparikou, trying to reduce the Authority’s role in granting rail network safety approvals”. This is what circles of the majority of the Commission of Inquiry for Tempi state and add:

“Despite her apparent attempt to play it down, she was forced to admit that the RAS’s conclusion on the safety management plan for the Tempe crash found human error.” Mrs. Tsaparikou, “after pointing out that the Authority’s ex officio investigation has not yet been completed, noted that the official conclusion states that “the stationmaster did not work as he should, the train drivers did not communicate as they should, we found indications that probably not all training hours were completed and that there were failures at various levels of control” the same circles state, underlining that there was human error on both sides (station master and train drivers). Mrs. Tsiaparikou was clear about the omissions, as – to her regret, as she said – it is established that “the two train drivers did not communicate”. When asked by Mr. Kokkalis, how they could communicate, the president of RAS clarified that the radio communication – regardless of GSM-R – was working, the circles of the majority in the committee report and continue: “”Since there was no remote control, we cannot control a system that didn’t exist” stressed the president of RAS, adding that “even if a part of the network is not remotely controlled, we have to give security approval based on the existing systems and the proposals and safeguards from the network manager”. He clarified that the OSE he is obliged to submit a huge file in order to obtain a license to put into operation, in which it is stated whether the traffic is by remote control or by a key and a station master. One can easily conclude, therefore, that regardless of whether remote control is in operation or not, the security license is granted based on the safeguards by the network manager, OSE, not based on RAS controls. At another point, Mrs. Tsiaparikou, referring to the progress of the projects, said that “especially after May 2022, we knew the schedule and also the month of implementation of the projects being carried out, in order for them to come for certification at RAS”.

At the same time, the same circles report that “answering a question about the abolition of the train conductor and the transfer of his duties to the conductor, Mrs. Tsiaparikou said that “any safety valve would be necessary as the Greek railway is”, although initially she tried to convince that his presence was not necessary. The president of RAS testified to the committee that in the EU in 2015 the concept of a supervisor was abolished, because the TSI operation system is now in effect, however she admitted that in our country we are still in a transitional stage. Asked about it, its president RAS she admitted that even in her conversations with trade unionists, although they all knew of the existence of problems, “they themselves did not believe that such an accident would happen”.

Finally, they note: “Furthermore, the president of RAS threw the ball at Hellenic Train regarding the state of health of the train driver, for whom he emphasized that “it is a given and proven that he did not do his job properly”. As Mrs. Tsiaparikou said, the responsibility, based on legislation, for informing RAS about the health status of the train drivers belongs to Hellenic Train. The president of RAS, regarding the medical document of the Patras hospital of 2017, where it is confirmed that the train driver had suffered a stroke and was diagnosed with an aneurysm, emphasized that there was no relevant information from the Authority. He also revealed that this is the first time they see in a medical file that someone has suffered a stroke, and more likely, two strokes. A feeling was also caused by her statement that “RAS employees preferred their party status over their service at the Authority for the Supervision of Railways”, when asked about the transfer of an employee to SYRIZA. They asked to move from RAS to SYRIZA, said the president of RAS, noting that she herself had excellent cooperation with the ND government.”