Ropeway

What we do

From 1 January 2024, the Rail Department of the Norwegian Safety Investigation Authority investigates serious ropeway incidents and accidents. This is in addition to the department’s responsibility as an investigating authority for rail, tram, light rail and metro. We cover the whole of Norway, have a 24-hour emergency service and receive more than 300 phone notifications per year.

Why do we have an independent investigative authority?

As a result of the very serious railway accident at Åsta on 4 January 2000, it was proposed to establish a permanent safety investigation authority for railway accidents. The mandate of the existing Accident Investigation Board for Civil Aviation at Kjeller was therefore extended, and in 2002 the railway department was formally established. In the years that followed, the mandate was further expanded to include the areas of road traffic, marine and the defense sector, so that NSIA is now a multimodal investigation authority. The NSIA is a professionally independent agency, but is administratively subordinate to the Ministry of Transport.

In order to understand and learn from an accident, it is important that an investigation takes place with a great degree of openness and trust between the investigating authority and those involved. For that reason, the NSIA has an extended duty of confidentiality regarding what we learn through the investigation.

NSIA shall not take a position on civil or criminal guilt and liability. The investigation must take place independently of any other investigation that wholly or partly has such a purpose. The NSIA's investigation reports shall not be used for anything other than preventive safety work.

About the investigation process

At the start of an investigation, relevant parties are notified via letter and NSIA's website. The NSIA itself decides the scope of the investigation and how it is to be carried out. Before the report is finalised, a draft version is sent to relevant parties, so that they can familiarize themselves with the report's content, and are given an opportunity to provide input and comments. In some cases, this may require further investigations to remove ambiguities, or to verify new elements that have been made known to the NSIA. The NSIA decides which input is to be included in the final report.

The Rail Department is led by Department Director Ida H. Grøndahl.