Keeping our people safe

By Jennifer Perry

Andy Summers, chief executive UGL Rail, and Lance Hockridge, QR National chief executive and chairman Australasian Railway Association (ARA), yesterday announced the establishment of the trackSAFE Foundation at the rail’s industry’s largest annual event, AusRAIL PLUS 2011.

Comparable to New Zealand’s extremely successful Chris Cairns Foundation, with the Hon. Tim Fischer as its patron, trackSAFE will focus on railway level crossing safety, trespass, suicide on the rail network, and the resultant trauma of these three factors on rail industry staff.

ARA chief executive Bryan Nye told Rail Express that the trauma rail personnel suffer is a key driver of trackSAFE.

“The rail network is a workplace,” Nye said, “Train drivers, guards and other rail industry employees are the first people at the scene of horrific incidents.

“Train drivers and rail employees who experience an incident are the silent victims and are often the last ones to see the person alive. For them, severe mental, physical and emotional trauma can result from witnessing such an event. The trauma of this can be long-lasting, deeply felt and costly for these employees, for victims, families and employers.”

trackSAFE’s work program will include an education and media awareness campaign, research into suicide on the rail network and potential prevention measures, and enforcement strategies with police.

“Increasing public awareness will help to reduce the number of incidents on the rail network. The workplace for our rail industry personnel will in turn be improved,” he said.

Nye pointed out that trackSAFE will not take away from the sophisticated trauma programs that operators already have in place for their employees.

“State-based rail safety initiatives are vital in combating safety issues, particularly localised issues that are specific to each state and their networks,” he said.

“This is not an attempt to duplicate their work; on the contrary, the trackSAFE Foundation will conduct research into these existing programs to build on best practice and spread this across industry.”

Importantly, trackSAFE will take a holistic approach to reducing incidents in the three targeted rail safety areas by pooling resources across rail operators, road users, emergency services, the police force, and the community.

“By combining funding, resources, experience and knowledge we can tackle these issues on a national scale. Embracing all of the groups that play a role in rail safety will be a very effective way of bringing attention to, and reducing, incidences on our rail networks and the stress and trauma these place on our workers,” Nye said.

A not-for-profit organisation and a joint ARA/UGL Rail initiative, trackSAFE has already raised $1 million, and has the backing of Pacific National, QR National, Rio Tinto, MTM Melbourne, RailCorp, Public Transport Authority Western Australia, TasRail, Brookfield Rail, and the South Australian Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure.

It is anticipated that the announcement of the foundation at AusRAIL PLUS 2011 will see more key industry players will come on board.

The official trackSAFE launch will take place during the annual Rail Safety Conference in Sydney, March 2012.

For more information contact: Naomi Frauenfelder, trackSAFE Foundation manager, nfrauenfelder@ara.net.au or 0409 249 919.