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Both the Office of Rail and Road and the Rail Safety and Standards Board recently released their annual reports on rail safety in the past year. They confirmed what we all already knew - Britain is the safest railway in Europe, by some considerable distance.
We could not produce a manifesto for the railway without including safety at its heart.
This is an extract from the ORR’s Health and Safety Annual Report, released in July, and some relevant comments by Director of Railway Safety and HMRI Chief Inspector of Railways Ian Prosser, in a recent interview with me (which can be read in RAIL 781 and 782):
Our message is very much about predicting and preventing health and safety issues before they happen. This is focused on factors such as safety in the design of trains, stations and infrastructure, management systems with an emphasis on continuous improvement, and sharing best practice.
In the words of William Blake: ‘Hindsight is a wonderful thing but foresight is better, especially when it comes to saving life, or some pain.’
Despite the good record, there is still much to do. We have seen little change in 2014-15 as improvements plateau. We are working with the industry to address some significant challenges in managing sustainable growth safely and improving worker health right now and into the future.
Looking back over the last decade, safety on Britain’s mainline railways, metro systems and London Underground improved steadily as passenger numbers have grown considerably. Over that same period, Network Rail increased its efficiency by more than 30%. Key investment in regulated safety enhancements, such as the requirement for train protection, helped drive the industry towards continuous improvement in risk management. It’s why our mainline network is now regarded as the safest railway in Europe, but we cannot be complacent.
In 2014-15, there were some positive improvements to health and safety, particularly the small reduction in overall harm to passengers at the platform-train interface and low levels of harm from train accidents, areas we and the industry have focused on.
There are also historic achievements worth noting, it’s the eighth consecutive year without any train accident-related passenger fatalities. There were no passenger train derailments for the second year - a significant achievement. Harm to passengers has reduced by a third over the last decade when normalised by the growth in passenger numbers.
In general though, improvements have plateaued. In 2014-15, we saw:
- actual harm to passengers increased 2%, but when normalised by the 4% increase in passenger journeys, decreased 2%;
- actual harm to workers reduced 3%, but stayed the same when normalised by the 3% fewer workforce hours worked; and
- actual harm to the public, excluding suicides, increased 10%. This was driven by two additional level crossings fatalities.
The industry’s level of management maturity showed only gradual improvements. It’s still some way from the excellence in health and safety and asset management culture that is central to high reliability organisations. However, we found that some passenger and freight operators and London Underground are beginning to edge towards excellence in some aspects of their risk management maturity such as employees actively involved in developing processes and management understanding the competencies needed for safe working.
Almost all the safety performance metrics we monitor look backwards. It’s important that we also look forward proactively. Otherwise, there is a danger of over-relying on risk models and their perceived stability to inform our judgements and losing sight of the fact that each incident had the potential to cause significant harm. Also, major train incidents are now rare on Britain’s railways, so we require a more sophisticated reading of underlying trends. With that in mind, the three key strategic safety points I want to focus on within the current risk landscape are:
n the ongoing challenges of managing growth and change: growth continued with 1.66 billion mainline passenger journeys (up 4%) and 1.3 billion passenger journeys on London Underground (up 3%). Considerable transformational projects put pressure on the industry, which is also managing resource constraints. Station management is proving more challenging with passenger growth alongside modifications and upgrades. These pressures will continue to grow and we are focused on improving industry safety by design and change management processes. Use of our railway management maturity model (RM3) assessment helps us all target the right areas.
n maintaining and renewing a safe, sustainable mainline infrastructure: while a lot of good work is being done in different areas, Network Rail has not delivered all its renewals plans and CP4 maintenance backlogs are now putting added pressure on maintenance teams, with the potential to increase risk. We are pressing Network Rail to assess this and will monitor and take enforcement as necessary.
n some meaningful improvements in occupational health and safety management: our latest report on industry occupational health performance identified some examples of excellence, but overall the sector still has a way to go. A robust health management culture will aid industry management maturity to face the growth and efficiency challenges. Similarly, there’s scope to significantly improve workforce safety, especially around infrastructure and construction activities.
Particular risk areas we are scrutinising across the sector include:
- drainage on the mainline railway: poor drainage management can cause embankment instability and track quality weaknesses. We had to take enforcement action on Network Rail this year.
- station safety: overall harm to passengers and others at mainline stations increased 2%, but reduced 2% when normalised by the 4% increase in passenger journeys (the best estimate for the growth in station use). The harm to passengers from the platform-train interface (PTI) decreased 21%, but by 24% when normalised. The PTI forms the single largest source of harm to individual passengers at stations, most involving slips, trips and falls. Mainline duty holders must implement the new PTI strategy2 as passenger numbers and infrastructure investment pressures grow. Using a safety by design approach will be important.
- signals passed at danger: there were 299 mainline signals passed at danger (SPAD) - numbers increased 4%, but overall SPAD risk declined 7%. The industry is producing a strategy to reduce SPAD risks as the mainline moves towards automatic train control, through the implementation of the European Train Control System (ETCS). We will monitor SPAD trends closely, particularly those that are high risk.
- infrastructure risk: there were overall reductions in the risk from earthwork, cutting and embankment failures - but it’s unclear if these resulted from benign weather. Following our enforcement in 2013-14, we saw track geometry improvements. However, we saw significant variations between Network Rail’s routes on how it was managed and their performance levels. Freight train derailments increased to 14, up six. We took steps to accelerate industry discussions about the system solutions needed to reduce derailment risks.
- mainline workforce safety: minor workforce injuries declined 2%. Of the 175 major injuries, 63% involved infrastructure workers. Our sector lags behind some comparable industries, levels of harm to railway infrastructure workers are worse than in other engineering professions. Important workforce safety initiatives are being rolled out by Network Rail, but they require long-term commitment. We took significant levels of enforcement on construction activities.
- level crossings: overall harm at level crossings increased 22%, primarily due to 10 fatalities, two more than 2013-14, but none involved any breaches of health and safety law. Of the 10, eight were pedestrians. Incidents involving road vehicles continue to decline. Network Rail closed 118 crossings, improved its crossing risk assessments and is implementing new technology. We expect the Law Commission’s 2013 report recommendations to be implemented by the Department for Transport (DfT). It will help drive future risk reductions.
- electrical safety: Britain’s railways are still some way off achieving compliance with the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989. Applying a safety by design approach is key. We issued a third rail electrification systems policy statement to help clarify our position.
