The railway is a very complex system. RSSB has developed tools for the industry to assess and target some hazards, but not all of them. Much of our risk analysis knowledge is based on the Safety Risk Model (SRM), now in version 9. One response to some identifiable hazards is to impose a blanket speed restriction. These can cover wide areas, and may themselves actually increase some types of risk.

Being able to identify specific parts of the network that may be susceptible to increased risk under certain environmental conditions can help. Building on the knowledge within the SRM, RSSB has, with Network Rail, started to develop the Whole System Risk Model (WSRM). Prompted by the Carmont incident, it’s a project that will take some time, but it has to start somewhere.

 03:00  About Marcus Dacre

03:30  Risk modelling work at RSSB

03:59  Modelling earthworks failures in the Precursor Indicator Model

05:12  RSSB’s involvement in responding to the RAIB recommendations to the Carmont incident

06:10  About the SRM

06:53  About Vincent Ganthy

07:34  Vincent’s focus on overall risk created by extreme rainfall events

09:00 Differences between the SRM and the WSRM

10:15 Establishing the level of network vulnerability

11:41  How the WSRM supports operational decision making

13:11  Current limitations and its potential for wider development

14:22  What we've found about the risk from speed restrictions

15:26  How to use the findings to respond to extreme rainfall events

16:11  Current testing and proving of the model

17:20  What’s next, the roadmap to extend the model

You may also be interested in:

How the Whole System Risk Model stops rail overcompensating for extreme weather events (RSSB web page 22 December 2022) https://www.rssb.co.uk/what-we-do/insights-and-news/blogs/how-the-whole-system-risk-model-stops-rail-overcompensating-for-extreme-weather-events 

Research project: Development of a system risk model for extreme rainfall events (T1269) https://www.rssb.co.uk/research-catalogue/CatalogueItem/T1269 

Safety Risk Model: Improving safety and reducing costs https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/risk-and-safety-intelligence/safety-risk-model/safety-risk-model-improving-safety-and-reducing-costs 

Structures and Earthworks Rules Changes (RSSB web page 6 March 2021) https://www.rssb.co.uk/standards/using-standards/structures-and-earthworks-rules-changes 

Case Study: Risk from soil cutting failures (RSSB web page 24 November 2022) https://www.rssb.co.uk/what-we-do/key-industry-topics/data-insights/earthworks-data-insights/case-study-risk-from-soil-cutting-failures 

Any practices described in this podcast shall not be assumed to be risk free. The Rail Safety and Standards Board and other participants in this recording shall not be held liable for actions taken by third parties that lead to loss or injury. Any practices described should, specifically, not be followed in the United States of America or Canada.

Achieving net zero carbon by 2050 will need more electrification of the GB railway. This episode looks at new and updated standards that don’t just make the requirements easier to understand. They also have the potential to deliver cost savings of well over £27m over five years. So, if you design OLE or AC-powered trains, you’ll want to listen to this episode.

01:24    About Mike Tatton

02:14    How standards are changed

03:43    Drivers of change for electrification standards

05:33    Who will be using these standards

06:42    What’s changed in GLRT1210, issue 3 

12:03    What’s new in RIS-1853-ENE

13:43    The new energy standards summarised

14:29    About Darren Fitzgerald

15:05    Key changes to the rolling stock RGS and the new RIS

16:21    New vehicle bonding requirements

17:25    Change to the cant rail warning line requirement

18:38    Main benefits from changes to these standards

19:45    Potential financial benefits from the changes

21:00    Summary and close

Resources mentioned in this episode:

December 2022 webinar recording
 https://rssb.videomarketingplatform.co/video/81831824/10:57/ac-current-collection-standards 

Register for the extended webinar at 11.00, 20 February 2023
 https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ac-standards-rolling-stock-and-electrification-registration-477392863907?ReturnUrl=https%3a%2f%2fwww.rssb.co.uk%2fservices-and-resources%2fservices%2fevents-and-webinars 

GLRT1210, AC Energy Subsystem and Interfaces to Rolling Stock Subsystem, issue 3
 https://www.rssb.co.uk/standards-catalogue/CatalogueItem/glrt1210-iss-3 

RIS-1853-ENE, AC Energy Subsystem and Interfaces to Rolling Stock Subsystem, issue 1
 https://www.rssb.co.uk/standards-catalogue/CatalogueItem/ris-1853-ene-iss-1 

RGS-2111, Rolling Stock Subsystem and Interfaces to AC Energy Subsystem, issue 3
 https://www.rssb.co.uk/standards-catalogue/CatalogueItem/gmrt2111-iss-3 

RIS-2715-RST, Rolling Stock Subsystem and Interfaces to AC Energy Subsystem, issue 1
 https://www.rssb.co.uk/standards-catalogue/CatalogueItem/ris-2715-rst-iss-1 

Overspeeding isn’t just an issue when driving trains. It happens on the roads as well. With nearly 10,000 road vehicles in its fleet Network Rail took steps to put numbers to it, and the findings were alarming. Hear what’s being done to tackle the problem and the outcomes so far.

00.48   About Simon Morgan
04.04   A definition for and consequences of road overspeeding.
05.15   The proportion of incidents that have overspeeding as a cause.
05. 56   What other causal factors contribute to overspeeding beyond individual choice.
06.05   Underlying culture of risk perception and the amount of overspeeding.
07.17   The potential fuel cost savings from cutting overspeeding
07.39   Tackling fatigue as a causal factor.
08.22   Removing pressure to ‘get the job done’.
09.49   The condition of vehicles
10.10   Summary and close

You may be interested in:
Network Rail Safety Central, Driving Safety page: https://safety.networkrail.co.uk/safety/driving-safety/
Network Rail’s Ten Lifesaving Rules: https://safety.networkrail.co.uk/safety/safety-vision-and-lifesaving-rules/lifesaving-rules/
Network Rail’s Lifesaving Rules Driving video (1:11) (contains strong language): https://safety.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/LSR-Driving-Subtitles-MP4-2.mp4  

Good decision making needs the support of good data. So, in this episode you can hear about the work that goes into assuring data quality, and the people behind it.

00:46 Introducing Siona Vass

01:43 About data quality and why it’s important

03:29 How RSSB measures data quality

04:26 Industry’s involvement in improving data quality

06:15 Continuous improvement and when data quality is ‘good enough’

07:26 How RSSB monitors data that might be missing or under-reported

08:51 The role for leaders in supporting data quality

10:16 What would happen if we didn’t manage data quality

11:23 The biggest contributors to data quality

12:15 Summary and close

You may also be interested in:

Data Quality Programme https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/risk-and-safety-intelligence/safety-management-intelligence-system/smis-data-quality 

SMIS in Context: https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/risk-and-safety-intelligence/safety-management-intelligence-system/smis-in-context 

Improving SMIS: Usability, Performance, Business Intelligence https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/risk-and-safety-intelligence/safety-management-intelligence-system/improving-smis-usability-performance-business-intelligence 

Strategy for SMIS https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/risk-and-safety-intelligence/safety-management-intelligence-system/strategy-for-smis 

SMIS Support https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/risk-and-safety-intelligence/safety-management-intelligence-system/smis-support 

Learning from the past to inform the future of SMIS https://www.rssb.co.uk/what-we-do/insights-and-news/blogs/learning-from-the-past-to-inform-the-future-of-smis

SMIS is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2022. Hear something of its history, its reason for being, and what it has done for our industry. How SMIS supports risk modelling and safety decision making.

 00:48  Introducing Kevin Thompson

01:16 The origins of SMIS after the 1988 Clapham rail crash

02:39  How SMIS functionality and technology have developed

03:34  The components that make up SMIS today

05:26  How SMIS supports RSSB’s work

06:36  How SMIS helps rail companies

07:08  How RSSB supports SMIS users

08:36  The value that SMIS delivers to risk modelling and decision making

09:53  Close

You may also be interested in:

The Safety Management Intelligence System https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/risk-and-safety-intelligence/safety-management-intelligence-system 

SMIS in context https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/risk-and-safety-intelligence/safety-management-intelligence-system/smis-in-context 

Strategy for SMIS https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/risk-and-safety-intelligence/safety-management-intelligence-system/strategy-for-smis 

Improving SMIS: Usability, Performance, Business Intelligence https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/risk-and-safety-intelligence/safety-management-intelligence-system/improving-smis-usability-performance-business-intelligence 

The Safety Risk Model https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/risk-and-safety-intelligence/safety-risk-model 

An Overview of The Precursor Indicator Model https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/improving-safety-health-and-wellbeing/rail-risk-toolkit/pim/an-overview-of-the-precursor-indicator-model 

Good information makes for good, evidence-based, safety critical decisions. Much of that information comes from data in the railway’s Safety Management Intelligence System, SMIS. This podcast looks at what’s being done and planned to make it easier and more efficient to use.

01:34 A bit about Paul Murray

01:58 About SMIS and how it is used

02:56 Why we continually improve and simplify SMIS

03:36 Less data, but more effective

04:18 Who’s been involved in the SMIS programme

04:57 Update releases and their benefits

06:07 Faster, easier data input

06:50 Automatic data transfer is coming

07:20 Systems that can connect to SMIS

07:55 Industry data requirements and data matching

08:39 If you’d like to explore the API route…

08:59 The importance of SMIS to the railway of the future

09:35 More SMIS episodes to follow

You may also be interested in:

The Safety Management Intelligence System https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/risk-and-safety-intelligence/safety-management-intelligence-system 

SMIS in context https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/risk-and-safety-intelligence/safety-management-intelligence-system/smis-in-context 

Strategy for SMIS https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/risk-and-safety-intelligence/safety-management-intelligence-system/strategy-for-smis 

Improving SMIS: Usability, Performance, Business Intelligence https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/risk-and-safety-intelligence/safety-management-intelligence-system/improving-smis-usability-performance-business-intelligence 

The Safety Risk Model https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/risk-and-safety-intelligence/safety-risk-model 

An Overview of The Precursor Indicator Model https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/improving-safety-health-and-wellbeing/rail-risk-toolkit/pim/an-overview-of-the-precursor-indicator-model 

Assets are everywhere. They are the things, physical and digital, that make up the systems we work with. When they work as designed and planned, to meet their objectives, the people who manage them go un-noticed. But these are the people who keep the risk of using them as low as reasonably practicable.

00:56 Chris Knowles, an introduction

02:07 Asset integrity and why it’s important

03:42 The whole lifecycle of asset management

06:54 The asset management is needed to keep risks as low as reasonably practicable

07:58 The criticality of system design

09:01 Asset decisions beyond safety

12:05 What’s coming up in this asset integrity series

14:13 Summary and close

You may also be interested in:
When Software Goes Wrong podcasts: https://www.rssb.co.uk/what-we-do/insights-and-news/rssb-podcast-series/when-software-goes-wrong 

When Software Goes Wrong - Digital Asset Integrity on the Railway – blog from the first in that podcast series, with links to other blogs and resources: https://www.rssb.co.uk/what-we-do/insights-and-news/blogs/digital-asset-integrity-one-path-to-reducing-railway-risk 

The Asset Integrity Group’s web page: https://www.rssb.co.uk/what-we-do/groups-and-committees/safety/system-safety-risk-group/asset-integrity-group 

Rolling Stock Asset Integrity web page: https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/leading-health-and-safety-on-britains-railway/rolling-stock-asset-integrity 

Infrastructure Asset Integrity web page: https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/leading-health-and-safety-on-britains-railway/infrastructure-asset-integrity

Red 62 video – Asset Integrity (RSSB members and Affiliates only): https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/learning-from-experience/red-safety-videos/red-62-asset-integrity

Safety Culture is everybody's business. In the first of a new series Ellie Burrows, Chair of the System Safety Risk Group, talks about the role of leaders in embedding safety culture. She describes the need for a fair culture and how that works to support safety learning.

01:43 Ellie Burrows, an introduction

02:20 What Safety Culture means to Ellie

03:54 Ellie’s role in leading and supporting the development of Safety Culture

04:56 The essential tasks for leaders of Safety Culture

06:07 Traits and characteristics for leaders of Safety Culture

07:39 The need for fair culture to build trust

08:39 The need for good understanding of fair culture and human factors

10:01 How fair culture works

11:35 The actions, policies, and practices that demonstrate a fair culture

13:05 Summary and close

You may also be interested in:

Leading Health and Safety on Britain’s Railway

Developing a Fair Culture – RSSB Training

Supporting a fair culture - creating appropriate plans after incidents – RSSB research project (T1068)

Fair Culture Investigations – Network Rail Safety Central web page

RSSB’s work with BowTie risk analysis has made it easy to visualise operational hazards, their precursors and mitigations. At LNER they’re applying the method in a novel way, to develop a corporate risk register. To identify the hazards faced in running a train operating company.

01:29 Introducing Ian Baulch-Jones

02:55 Ian recaps risk analysis and how BowTie analysis works

04:58 What LNER is doing with BowTie analysis

06:30 Why BowTie analysis?

08:08 Has anybody done this before?

08:54 The benefits envisaged in using the Bowtie Method.

09:56 How long is this all going to take?

11:41 Where LNER’s project sits within ORR’s RM3

13:34 How this BowTie diagram differs from an operational hazard diagram

15:27 LNER’s experience so far…

16:27 Close

You may be interested in:

Rail Industry BowTie Analysis: A Good Practice Guide

RSSB BowTie Risk Model Library

The RSSB BowTie Hub

Other related resources:

Wolters Kluwer: CGE Risk Webpage

CGE Risk (YouTube video) The BowTie Method in 5 Minutes

UK Civil Aviation Authority - Where did BowTie come from?

UK Civil Aviation Authority - Introduction to BowTie

Not just a certificate for the wall, but a seven step guide for how to support your employees and colleagues towards better mental health.

00:00 A little bit about mental health at work

01:47 Meet Faye Bacon

02:14 About the Railway Mental Health Charter

02:42 How the Charter helps companies support mental health

03:28 Action 1, the importance of senior leaders’ support

04:45 Action 3, increasing awareness around mental health

05:26 Action 6, effective people management for mental health

06:06 Action 4, creating an effective peer-to-peer support system

06:22 Action 7, signposting mental health support resources

06:51 Action 2, using company data to highlight needs

07:16 Action 5, getting the right policies in place

07:44 The Charter is only a starting point for planning

09:31 Support for new Charter signatories

10:18 Reasons for supporting mental health, legal and financial

11:34 Who has, and who we’d like to sign the Charter

12:39 Some benefits of signing the Charter

14:05 Where to find more information

The Railway Mental Health Charter – RSSB web page https://www.rssb.co.uk/what-we-do/key-industry-topics/health-and-wellbeing/mental-wellbeing/railway-mental-health-charter-rmhc