ORR on tour: A South African adventure
IAN PROSSER, HM Chief Inspector of Railways, reports on how he and two colleagues, Ben Shirley and Clare Povey (both HM Inspectors of Railways), recently took a visit to South Africa to share knowledge and learning on railway safety cultures
When the Railway Safety Regulator of South Africa (RSR) invited me and my colleagues from the Office of Rail and Road to take the 8,200-mile, 13-hour flight from London to Johannesburg to share our thinking on best practice in rail safety, we jumped at the chance.
Not only because we know that the Risk Management Maturity Model (RM3) has had a hugely beneficial impact on the safety of passengers and workers in Great Britain and we are very keen to share its positive effects around the world, but also because we expected, that as well as the opportunity to teach, the trip would provide learning we can use to improve our own practices.
The South African railway has had a troubled record in recent years. In 2015, 200 people were injured when two passenger trains collided in Johannesburg, and that disaster came on the heels of previous tragedies, including 25 people being killed when a coal train hit a truck carrying farm workers in 2012, and ten children dying in a crash between a commuter train and a minibus on a level crossing in 2010.
Further challenges faced by the publicly owned network include a decline in usage – from around 50 million journeys a month in 2008 to 34 million a month in 2016 - which means that there’s very low activity on around 35% of the nation’s 12,000 miles of track. To add to the problems, there’s been an epidemic of cable theft, which affects day-to-day safety and makes journeys unpredictable for passengers.
Our visit followed a trip earlier this year when colleagues first introduced RM3. We were there to explain how we approach our work as a regulator and how we use RM3. We worked with RSR and PRASA (the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa) by conducting joint inspections of the PRASA operations.
On the first day we visited the impressive new Gauteng Nerve Centre (GNC) which has been built to manage signalling across the country, but is not yet fully operational.
There we discussed the differences between our RM3-based Process Inspection, which takes a broad approach assessing the effectiveness of risk controls and observing for evidence, against Compliance Auditing (the current method of inspection by RSR) which takes a narrower approach focusing on whether or not the situation, as observed, is compliant with regulations or not.
Our hosts were very keen to learn all they could of our working practices and were very interested to hear how we incorporate concepts such as our vision for zero fatalities, striving for continuous improvement, devising frameworks for inspections and adjusting for the influence of human factors on our daily work.
But the learning was very much a two-way street, and we brought home some useful information. This included opportunities for improving our permissioning arrangements by adopting the South African model of agreements to operate and the fundamentals of railway operation. Pilotman-working is obsolete here, but in South Africa, where cable theft is a growing problem, they’ve had to adapt to changing situations; using a pilotman has been an unfortunate daily reality for seven years on one route.
It was a timely reminder that we need to remain alert to unusual situations that can arise, and it was also a useful ‘stress test’ for RM3 under a railway operation with a very different risk profile and challenges, which we are constantly looking to update and improve.
The second day featured a visit to Koedoespoort Station, where we looked more closely at change management and infrastructure. It was here that we got a real impression of the problems faced by the railway network in South Africa and why they are so keen to learn all they can from ORR
and RM3.
In just a few short hours we saw cleaners working on tracks with weak safety controls, members of the public wandering along the tracks, trains which operated even though the doors did not close properly due to misuse, and where those same doors opened on the wrong side - allowing passengers onto the tracks.
On day three we inspected rolling stock maintenance at Wolmerton and Braamfontein depots. Here we witnessed more troubling practices, such as a member of staff risking life and limb by jumping over an inspection pit instead of taking a few seconds to walk around.
This prompted a long discussion on leadership and the importance of embedding the principles of RM3 through every tier of the organisation.
Our host, Herman Bruwer, RSR General Manager Safety Management Systems, said after our visit:
“I wish to thank the ORR team for their professionalism in every intervention you made and in sharing your strategic thoughts, which will add tremendous value to the RSR’s thrust in obtaining safety assurance in the railway industry.
“Your presentation to us and PRASA Rail will go a long way in assisting us both to ensure ‘excellence’ in railway operations.”
However, the relationship between ourselves and RSR does not end there. We are currently discussing the possibility of a return visit, which would enable a South African Inspector to witness first-hand how we inspect the railway, and to offer insights on how we might improve our practices and return to South Africa as an ‘RM3 Champion’.
ORR also continues to provide support to railway safety colleagues in Dubai, where an ORR representative recently helped with an RM3-based audit of its metro operation. The costs of these engagements are met by our partners and they offer valuable opportunities for ORR inspectors to develop their professional expertise.