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July 16, 2013

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Rail regulator praises industry’s safety record but union cries “complacency”

Britain’s railways have been hailed by the industry’s regulator as among the safest in Europe, despite nine level-crossing deaths, a significant increase in signals passed at danger, and fines totalling £4.8 million for Network Rail for health and safety breaches.

The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR), issuing its ‘Health and Safety Report 2013’ today (16 July), said performance in managing passenger and level-crossing safety is better than all other European railways, but it also warned the industry against complacency and called for improvements in track-worker safety and infrastructure management.

Although there were no passenger deaths in train accidents for the sixth year running — some 1.5 billion train journeys were undertaken last year — nine people lost their lives in level-crossing incidents in 2012/2013 — a 7-per-cent increase in risk. Nevertheless, the report says Network Rail is set to meet its target of a 25-per-cent reduction in level-crossing risk by 2014.

Track-worker safety was 8 per cent worse than the previous year — mainly due to slip, trip and fall incidents — but overall, harm to the workforce went down by 11 per cent from 2011/2012. The ORR found in its inspections that track workers were often put at additional risk because of inadequate planning and poor systems of work.

Also a concern was the 87-per-cent leap in underlying SPAD risk (signals passed at danger), mostly because of an increase in higher-risk SPADs at lower-risk signals not fitted with a train protection system.

The ORR said it remains worried about driver distraction, pointing out that use of a personal mobile phone was “a likely contributor” to at least one serious collision during the year under review.

It called on Network Rail and train-operating companies to focus more on occupational-health management, particularly in relation to worker fatigue. It cited examples of what the former is doing in this regard, under its ‘Transforming Safety & Well-being Strategy for 2012-24’.
 
In terms of enforcement action taken by the regulator, there were 11 successful prosecutions — five of them against Network Rail, leading to total fines of £4.8 million. The infrastructure operator and its contractors also received 16 Improvement Notices and six Prohibition Notices.

Commenting on the report, the ORR’s director of safety, Ian Prosser, said: “[Our] analysis shows there is considerable room for improvement in specific areas, such as planned track maintenance, management of civil structures and the safety of track workers. It is now essential the rail industry works as one to deliver an even safer railway.€ᄄ
“To maintain improvements the regulator has recently approved increased funding for the next five years to improve safety-critical areas of Britain’s railways, with additional money to improve the condition of structures such as bridges or tunnels, as well as to upgrade and close level crossings.”

But the RMT union criticised the report, saying it “dripped with complacency”. Leader Bob Crow told SHP: “The fact is that it is the ORR that is demanding the cuts that are leading to the casualisation of safety-critical track work and the ushering in of a zero-hours culture.

“While our members are getting injured out on the railways at increasing frequency RMT’s fight for a safe working environment goes on.”

To view a PDF of the full report, visit: http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/health-safety-report-2013.pdf

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