Railway suicides represent only a minority of all suicides and the extent to which they contribute to total suicide mortality varies considerably among countries, e.g. Germany 7%, Netherlands 11.5% [
1‐
4]. Nevertheless, the majority of fatalities on the EU railways are suicides, representing over 60% (N = 2429) of all railway fatalities [
5]. The immense human and economic loss due to railway suicides calls for innovative preventive measures. Technical measures, such as restricting access, e.g. by installing physical barriers in strategic places [
6‐
9], or the installation of blue lights on train platforms in Japan [
10], are proving to be effective. Non-technical approaches, such as awareness programmes or gatekeeper training courses [
3,
9,
11‐
13], are promising. An integral part of such courses is to recognize suicidal behavioural patterns which can help to identify potential railway suicide victims [
14,
15] and to be alert of specific high risk time windows of railway suicide (e.g. weekdays, daytime). So far, studies on railway suicides have revealed a frequency peak in April and September [
16,
17]. Regarding the weekly distribution, studies indicate a peak of suicide numbers at the beginning of the week and a low on weekends [
17,
18]. As for circadian patterns, previous analyses found a bimodal pattern with a morning peak between 9:00 am and noon, and an evening peak between 6:00 pm and 9:00 pm [
16,
17]. Notably, the peaks of the summer half year (April to September) compared to those in the winter half year (October to March) were clearly shifting in correspondence to the changing time of sunrise and sunset [
17]. The knowledge of high-risk time windows can contribute to the development of effective approaches to prevention, if the underlying patterns were reliable. The investigation of temporal patterns and their stability over time is an important step in railway suicide prevention.
Thus, the aim of the study was to compare time patterns of suicidal behaviour on railway tracks in Germany between two observation periods (1995–1998 and 2005–2008) in order to investigate underlying principles of temporal patterns and to strengthen their usefulness in railway suicide preventive measures such as gatekeeper training courses.