Industry seeks consistency in rail safety: conference

By Paula Wallace

A packed conference room of more than 160 delegates came together in Sydney on February 26th and 27th to hear presentations on rail safety, including several international speakers.
The conference, organised by the Rail Industry Safety and Standards Board for the Australasian Railway Association (ARA), provided an update on new national safety standards and guidelines progress of significant safety forums the latest on regulatory reform with updates from Government, the National Transport Commission and ARA.
It also took an outward looking approach at other industries and how the rail industry may learn from them in terms of improving safety management systems and improving business performance.
We cant forget about business performance, the two things are intrinsically linked, without business performance we wont be able to improve safety because thats where the money comes from, said chairman of the conferences first day, KiwiRails Phil OConnell.
The ARAs CEO Bryan Nye said one of the themes to come out of the conference was certainly that good safety is good business.
Level crossing accidents cost $106 million last year, because somebody in each case did not obey the road rules and we paid for it, said Nye.
He said it was good to see the industrys commitment to safety and risk management, but more importantly duty of care as opposed to a prescriptive approach to safety.
Were really suffering from an era of people prescribing their way out of it, said Nye, its the duty of care thats far more important and I think other industries have demonstrated that to us.
He said that harmonisation of standards and practices was discussed several times throughout conference proceedings and he assured those present that the industry will achieve consistency right across the board.
We will get rid of the 22 communications networks being used around the countryand well do it quickly. Theyll be a push to come into a national safety data system.
Because, said Nye, the rail industry is still not a safe place to work.
Next Tuesday we will actually pass the first stage of the national rulebook, thats incredible, people said that wasnt possible four or five years ago, said Nye.
He believes this is part of an internal reform process he has seen the industry go through in recent years.
Rail has a great future, said Nye, Rail is on every Governments agenda, theres massive investmentits the first time the Federal Government has put money into level crossings. We have $150 million that has to be spent in two years.
Theres a third economic stimulus package on its way and I know theres rail in that.
In relation to progress on creating one national regulator Nye said, The two States that are currently holding out are Western Australian and Victoriawe will get a national rail regulator, the transport minister is determined to achieve this.
In a speech presented by Minister for Transport in New South Wales, David Campbell said, Given the growth of rail passenger and freight services and the considerable amount of money that Government is now allocating to rail infrastructure there is a clear expectation that industry will manage its rail safety risks.
Further, he said there is a clear expectation by Government that industry will not take short cuts with worksite protection in providing this infrastructure.
The Rail Safety Act requires the Independent Transport Safety and Reliability Regulator (ITSRR) to submit to the Minister each year a Rail Industry Safety Report.
The Minister recently tabled the Rail Industry Safety report for 20072008. Campbell shared some of the main findings of this report with conference delegates. He said the number of rail-related fatalities involving passengers or other members of the public was at or close to the lowest of the last 10 years.
Where those fatalities involved a trespasser or were suicide related there was a decreasing trend over the last 10 years.
There was also a decreasing trend in the number of running line derailments over the same time period, and a decreasing trend in the number of collisions between trains and road vehicles at level crossings over the last 10 years.
The report also showed that several other categories such as assault and some rollingstock irregularities experienced increases in 2007-08 compared with previous years.
But rather than signalling a deterioration of rail safety, I am advised that these increases were largely the result of changes in reporting requirements for these types of incidents and improvements in detecting and recording incidents, said Campbell.
There is a lot of good news in this report despite this there is always room for improvement and some issues require particular attention. One example of this is track work protection.
Two track workers died in a single accident in 2007-08 when they were struck and fatally injured by a coal train at Singleton. The fatalities highlighted the need to improve safe-working arrangements for work on tracks.
I trust that the lessons learned from this event will prevent further track worker fatalities in the future, said Campbell.

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