Britain’s rail safety record, as Tom Ingall points out, is only earned and sustained by hard work and by learning from past errors. There are lessons which could translate into roads: collecting and analysing incident data and developing a system approach to improving safety.
Road driving accidents involving rail workers have been identified as one of the top risks in the industry’s safety strategy. While not immediately obvious, rail staff use roads every day and the dangers from this are very evident. Many staff, contractors, BTP officers and other people working for the industry have to drive to reach their workplace. Drivers and guards often use taxis or buses to pick up their train, and bus replacement is often the only alternative for passengers navigating engineering works.
At RSSB we have sought to assess this level of risk, but the research project was not easily able to quantify it due to a lack of reliable data for rail replacement bus service accidents. What we do know is that there has been one fatality of a railway worker on the roads reported in the past 12 months - although it could be higher if road commuting to work is included, where data has not been provided to us.
Risk tolerance is low on trains and aeroplanes, but much higher on roads because of the perception of control. This tells us that human behaviour is a key factor in terms of tolerance of risk and the behaviours which influence it. Rail industry road fatalities have root causes linked to human behaviours as well as fatigue. As a first step, educating colleagues and empowering them to think about road safety, and then act every time they get into a vehicle, will put us in a much better place. After all, as an industry we don’t allow train drivers to work when they are tired, so it should not be acceptable for road drivers either. We all share the roads with other road users who will have varying skill levels, experience and perceptions to risk, and their vehicles may not be maintained to high or even legal standards. These all play a part when we are looking at how, as an industry, we can develop strategies to reduce risk.
By working with industry to understand the risk profile, supported by sound data analysis and developed strategies to address our identified key areas, we will seek to further improve safety in the sector.
Working in partnership with cross-sector organisations such as the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, we can provide a starting point for others to develop local, regional and national strategies to make greater gains in reducing the now static road fatality figure of about 1,700 - rather than just hoping it comes down a bit.
