<p>The Australasian Railway Association (ARA) has released the first draft of its national code of practice for fatigue management.</p> <p>It aims to provide the rail industry with best practice for management and control of fatigue in rail safety workers.</p> <p>"In reviewing and developing the codes we quickly became aware that the vast majority of companies had already implemented safe working practice guidelines, so it has not been too difficult an exercise to integrate the best of these to establish a consistent national approach," ARA CEO Bryan Nye said.</p> <p>Rail is already the safest land transport sector, Mr Nye said.</p> <p>The Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s 2003 review shows that passenger rail is five times safer and freight rail 28 times safer than road, he said.</p> <p>But this does not mean the industry wants to rest on its laurels, he said.</p> <p>The draft code is now open to comment from stakeholders. </p> <br />
