Industry-wide measures to cut rail-related accidents

6 December 2010

Plans to cut work-related death and injury rates across the railway industry were revealed at one of IOSH’s biggest annual events.

The Rail Industry Conference 2010 featured big names including Network Rail, the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) and Docklands Light Railway (DLR), who each talked about their health and safety improvement strategies for the year ahead.

The QBE Insurance-sponsored event was held at London’s Glazier’s Hall in November and included a session from Tube Lines – the operator responsible for maintaining and upgrading London Underground’s Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines.

Chief Executive Andie Harper and Director of Health and Safety Diarmaid O’Tuathail talked about its big reduction in lost-time injuries thanks to the company’s ‘Road to Zero’ campaign. They also announced that Tube Lines was now specifically targeting hazards for the coming year.

Diarmaid said: “One of our core values is to be safe – we believe incidents are genuinely avoidable, so we have to believe we can reduce them to zero.”

“We now have a target of removing all hazards and to do this, we’ll be re-thinking our approach, encouraging more safety innovation, educating people in safety behaviour by getting them to predict hazards, fixing hazards early, and encouraging a culture where it is fine to tell people when they might be in danger.”

Network Rail Director of Investment Projects Simon Kirby talked about plans for a new behavioural safety strategy, as well as three-day coaching and one-day awareness courses for supervisors that the company was already hosting, along with immersion discussions that currently exist for its teams to establish at the start of each day how they plan to stay safe on-site.

He added: “We do have a blame culture in our industry and what we need is an open one where people feel as though they can discuss issues openly and without fear. But we also understand that safety excellence requires a cultural transformation and leadership.”

DLR’s preparations for the Olympics were introduced by Safety, Risk and Security Manager Andrew Petrie, while Phil Bladon, Risk Manager, Casualty for QBE Insurance talked about the outcomes of Lord Young’s ‘Common Sense – Common Safety’ review of health and safety.

Among a host of other interactive and informative sessions for delegates throughout the day was a keynote from Safety Regulation Committee Chair Steve Walker, plus a talk on achieving excellence from HM Chief Inspector and Director of Rail Safety at ORR Ian Prosser.

IOSH Railway Group Chair Iain Ferguson said the conference was a vital part of the organisations calendar and added: “Although the industry is safer than it has ever been, there is no room for complacency. What’s important is that the maturity of the industry develops so that injuries to either passengers or workforce are much less likely to happen in the future.

“We actually want to make sure that the safety management and health management systems continually develop.”