RSSB director highlights light rail safety challenges
RSSB (Rail Safety and Standards Board) Director of System Safety and Health George Bearfield has warned about the risks of ‘knee jerk’ reactions to incidents, saying it is critical for transport operators to understand risks and to act in a risk-based way.
He says the most important aspects of a response are to ensure that the immediate system is safe, to ensure that safety is efficiently and effectively managed, and to regain confidence in the wider transport system.
Bearfield was discussing how the response to the Sandilands tram accident of November 9 2016 ( RAIL 814) can be faced strategically in a way that can help drive culture changes, during a lecture at the University of Huddersfield Institute of Railway Research.
He highlighted rapid action taken by London Trams after Sandilands, to improve speed warning signs and to fit driver fatigue monitoring systems. But he also pointed out that management arrangements must be reviewed and tested - the latter in practice as well as in theory.
After explaining the heavy rail sector’s response to the Ladbroke Grove accident of 1999, Bearfield turned his attention to what the light rail sector could do next to ensure safety is effectively managed.
“I would suggest that the tram sector needs to work closely with its regulator, funders and others, to be clear and explicit about their shared approach to risk management.
“The approach needs to be effective, and also to demonstrably stand up to scrutiny. In particular, clear criteria for safety investment are needed.”
Bearfield argued that goodquality risk information is needed, and that the whole sector needs a long-term strategy for data collection, with sharing of it to support learning across the industry and to make the case for significant investment in the future.
Greater collaboration across the light rail sector was suggested, along with associated governance - along the lines of how the heavy rail sector has evolved in the almost 20 years since Ladbroke Grove.