A woman who says she witnessed a pedestrian fatally struck by a Sydney tram earlier this month is calling for safety upgrades to the city’s light rail network.
Annalise Gasparre, 27, said she was standing on the opposite platform at a light rail stop on Devonshire Street in Surry Hills in the moments before the man died on 5 June.
Police said last week their initial inquiries, including reviewing CCTV footage, showed the man was attempting to cross the light rail track between two carriages when the tram began moving and trapped him.
The man was the second pedestrian to die after being struck by a tram on Sydney’s light rail in two years, after the 2023 death of a teenage girl who became trapped underneath a tram while attempting to cross a street in the CBD.
The Sydney Light Rail network includes the L1 Dulwich Hill, L2 Randwick and L3 Kingsford lines, all of which run into the CBD. A new line opened in December, connecting Parramatta with Carlingford.
The L2 and L3 routes use the Citadis X05 Light Rail Vehicles, built by the French manufacturer Alstom. While they are 33 metres in length, these trams are coupled together on the L2 and L3 routes to form a 66-metre-long vehicle.
The fatal incident in Surry Hills prompted debate about whether it was safe to operate coupled trams.
Gasparre, who said she saw the pedestrian die, suggested sensors or effective cameras be added to trams to alert drivers if a person was trapped underneath before they started moving away from a light rail stop.
She also suggested that the yellow line at the edge of the platform at light rail stops should be moved further back.
She said “you could fit two people” between the platform and the coupling joining the two trams.
“To be honest, I think the light rail design needs to be changed,” she said. “The danger gap is so big.”
Gasparre did not see how the man came to be on the tracks, but believes he may have tripped forward and fallen off the platform.
“I hope something in terms of safety will come out of this,” she said.
NSW police on Thursday said the man’s death was now a matter for the coroner, who would be reviewing statements from all witnesses.
Dr Liam Davies, a lecturer in sustainability and urban planning at RMIT University, said the two light rail deaths were “terrible accidents” but the network was “overwhelmingly” safe.
However, he said additional safety measures could include installing something to block the gap between the tram carriages, or putting a barrier in the middle of a light rail stop to discourage people from trying to cross the road.
“It would have to be a lower cost, lower tech intervention, like fitting something to the existing trams,” he said.
“The other option is simply to not run them as coupled trams, but that would require a large amount of reorganisation to get more drivers and to redevelop all the timetables to be able to run more trams during peak hour.”
Davies said Sydney’s light rail network was much smaller and less complex than Melbourne’s, where trams only run in a single fashion rather than being coupled together to form a longer vehicle.
“There’s no right or wrong answer,” he said. “It’s got to be really context specific, and usually the context that these types of couple trams get run in are very busy corridors that have a lot of passengers.”
Transport for NSW said in a statement that the Surry Hills death was “extremely distressing”
“This incident is now under investigation by NSW police and Transport for NSW and the operator Transdev are giving their full support,” the statement said.
“The investigation will review what controls were in place, and we can not speculate further on any controls or conditions at this time. While the matter is investigated, we are unable to comment further.”
Guardian Australia sought comment from Transdev, the light rail’s private operator, on Thursday.
