Health & Safety IAN PROSSER
AN INDUSTRY ACHIEVEMENT, BRITAIN’S RAILWAY IS ONE OF EUROPE’S SAFEST
Words: Ian Prosser
Director of Railway Safety Office of Rail Regulation
ORR’s health and safety report 2012 is available to view online at:
www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/nav.2829
New industry statistics highlight passenger harm has now reduced to its lowest ever recorded level.
reported in the regulators recently published annual health and safety report 2012. The report provides a detailed assessment of health and safety performance on Britain’s railways in 2011-2012.
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Britain’s railway sector employs more than 150,000 people and turns over £18bn annually. The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) plays a pivotal role, as the independent regulator, in making sure the rail industry delivers a safe, effective and efficient system, focused on the needs of users and responsive to the priorities of funders.
Our three main priorities are: • Reducing the industry’s costs. • A sharper focus on customers.
• Excellence in safety culture and management across the industry.
We are committed to ensuring that the industry gets a better grip on its costs, whilst delivering the levels of safety, performance and efficiency that passengers, freight customers and taxpayers rightly expect. Achieving excellence in safety culture and management is an essential element of our strategy, as we seek to ensure a zero tolerance approach to industry-caused fatalities to its workforce and members of the public, with an ever decreasing overall safety risk.
30 RailCONNECT
an Prosser, Director of Railway Safety at the Office of Rail Regulation, gives an update on the core health and safety issues facing Britain’s railways, as
Responsibility for the safety of the rail system sits with railway infrastructure managers and train operating companies. ORR uses its regulatory and enforcement powers to make sure they meet their responsibilities, and that safety is maintained.
The health and safety report 2012 confirms that Britain continues to have one of the safest railways in Europe. ORR inspectors have found that safety on our railways is improving in a number of key areas, and their findings are supported by new industry statistics which highlight passenger harm has now reduced to its lowest ever recorded level.
Latest industry data shows that on the basis of fatality risk per traveller km, rail travel is more than 1,400 times safer than travelling by motorcycle, over 400 times safer than cycling or walking and around 20 times safer than using a car.
Beyond these statistics, which provide a useful benchmark for rail safety compared to other forms of transport, ORR’s health and safety report highlights a number of successes, including:
• A reduction in the level of passenger harm - with the number of passenger journeys taken into account, the overall rate of harm decreased by 12% over the past year, to the lowest level ever recorded.
• London Underground, Overground and Docklands Light Railway all achieved a year without any workforce and industry caused passenger fatalities.
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