Case Study

Safety and risk management is considered to be one of the important aspects that most of the companies have followed in their workplace operations. In this regard, the role of the safety and risk management is to identify the workplace related hazards and risks that can bring obstacles to the smooth operations of the company. As a matter of fact, the role of the safety and risk management is to maintain the workplace health and safety so that the workers and employees cannot put any obligation against the company. In case of breaching the safety measures the Company can face serious legal issues. Therefore, the purpose of this report is to portray the process of risk management after the occurrence of an accident. The report highlighted the case of derailment of a train on 21^st April, 2016 at Rawlinna, Australia (atsb.gov.au, 2016). In addition to this, the transformation in the railway risks and safety management is also incorporated into the discussion.

This concerned incident was happened on 21^st April, 2016 when a locomotive train with the number 3MP5 derailed while running through the eastern points at Rawlinna. In the first hand investigation report it was claimed that the points failed to restore the normal position after the last train was departed the loop line. The points were in an open position when the 3MP5 was running over it (atsb.gov.au, 2016). It was also claimed that the indicator system displayed red on the screen but the train failed to see it. In fact, the point detection system also failed to detect and lock the safe position. The damage of this train accident put minor impression on human life. The train crew suffered with minor injuries. Nevertheless, the damage expanses were huge as the accident caused damage worth of 200 million. Mostly the rail track infrastructure were damaged and it blocked the main track between Adelaide and Perth till 25^th April, 2016 (atsb.gov.au, 2016).

Meanwhile further investigation was carried out by the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau (ATSB) that exposed the cause of trouble due to exceeding the speed of the train. The train exceeded the normal speed while changing the intersections. The report identified that it was a common practice of the drivers not to reduce the speed while crossing points. As a matter of fact, the crew of the locomotive train also failed to meet the requirements of the Rail Industry Safety and Standards Board (RISSB) measured for the locomotives (atsb.gov.au, 2016). As per the requirement, the trains must have rolling stock access and egress system coupled with access paths and access ways. However, in case of the 3MP5, the crew did not follow the regulation because there was no access of escape in case of accidents without external assistance and additional equipment.

Existing Safety and Risk Management

There were number of safe working mechanism in Australian that is entitled to ensure safety and risk management. In this context, the role of ARTC can be identified. The full form of ARTC is Australian Rail Track Corporation that is responsible to check the safety and risks in the Australian transport supply and committed to boost the Australian economy (Artc.com.au, 2018). The ARTC controls 8,500 km rail network surrounded Australia and dedicates itself for developing the rail network as one of the main transport networks for business and producers all across the country (Artc.com.au, 2018). Moreover, the health and safety of the workers and the employees, environmental considerations and the community issues are also incorporated into the objectives of the ARTC.

As far as the general principles regarding safety in the railway tracks, it can be argued that the railway companies must have adequate infrastructure for maintaining safe train separation and protection of the workers (ara.net.au, 2018). Furthermore, the safety of the routes and the movement of points under a train are also incorporated into the regulatory guidelines of the ARTC. The purpose of this framework is to control the over-speed operations of the trains (ntc.gov.au, 2008). However, the addendum of the act in 2015 incorporates more measures in terms of railway operation management plan and the addenda for track operations.

Besides this, the addendum puts emphasis on the stakeholders and community management in order to reduce the possibilities of train related risks and damages. In this regard, the responsibilities of the contractors intensify at a rapid pace where the contractors are compelled to submit all the documents in order to involve the stakeholders and community engagement (ntc.gov.au, 2008). In case of any kind of breach of regulation in the process, the contractors will be terminated. In addition to this, the ARTC resembles with the plan to enact more rules in order to ensure the safety of the goods and the train crew for the betterment of the business environment.

 Keeping in mind of the fatality and increasing accidents in the Australian railway network, the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator (ONRSR) has come to play a pivotal role in reducing the rail accidents. In fact, the ONRSR strictly follows the Rail Safety National Law (RSNL) and determined to work on the transport operators with the primary concern to ensure safety and security to the passengers and the goods as well (rissb.com.au, 2017). In this context, a rigorous change in the railway safety measures has to be implemented in addition to monitoring, investing and enforcing compliance with RSNL. The ONRSR comes up with a corporate regulatory plan to enhance and promote safety through effective risk based regulation.

Change in the Process

In this regard, the data driven regulatory measures are considered to be an important part in the process of ensuring safety. Henceforth, the ONRSR implemented a 12 months monitoring and examining process to improve the risk management (Onrsr.com.au, 2017). In response to this, the report puts emphasis on the future data needs. This process is comprised with data management, analysis, modelling and reporting. Involving the stakeholders is another major concern for ONRSR to take decision regarding an effective rail safety measure (rissb.com.au, 2017). This regulatory intelligence framework has four entities in the form of knowledge of railway operation, ONRSR viewpoint regarding railway safety and compliance, manage and monitoring the safety performance and indicators to identify the gaps in the measures (Onrsr.com.au, 2017).

Recently, the Rail Industry Safety Standards Board (RISSB) launched an Australian Rail Risk Model in 2017 that was committed to generate valuable information regarding the railway operations and analyse the risks to safety. Moreover, in course of the decision making process this model will deliver a strategic advantage in order to figure out the risk factors before the actual risk happens (Ilin, Kalinina, Iliashenko & Levina, 2016).

However, the accident in Rawlinna highlighted some major flaws that the Rail authority of Australia overlooked due to lack of insights. In other words, there was no progress in the rail control system in Australia or the transformation of the rail controlling system is too slow that it does not have enough impact on the security and risk management related to the train network. However, after the accident, the government and the responsible authority try to figure out some factors that can be altered and bring more pro-activeness in the railway networking system (Madigan, Golightly & Madders, 2016).

The role of the point enhancer is to highlight the points and provide additional information regarding the position of the points. In many cases, due to the lack of light caused by fog or obstructions the train drivers fail to locate the points as a result of that train accidents have become a common phenomenon in Australia (Schlechte, 2014). However, this point enhancer will provide advance warning in case of the train is getting over speed and indicate the location of the points (Meran, Baykasoglu, Mugan & Toprak, 2016).

Besides this, the radio remote control system is also considered to be beneficial for the Australian railway sector to enhance the security and safety of the locomotives and human life as well. There was already a remote controlling system installed in the rail tracks in Rawlinna that allowed the drivers to select the tracks and the line would automatically return to the normal after the train was deported (Parkinson & Bamford, 2016). This was supposed to be adequate measures for the rail companies but they proved to be wrong. Recently, the Australian rail authority and the ARTC are going to install a new device that is designated to initiate a point control sequence (Gou et al., 2016). In this manner, the point will have automation where after a certain period of time the points will attach with the main line.

Conclusion

The above discussion pointed out an in-depth analysis over the railway risks and safety measures that were breached a couple of time by the Australian Railway networks. For a better understanding the report took the case study of Rawlinna locomotive accident which forced the RISSB to investigate the existing railway safety measures. As per the report, it can be seen that there were a number of drawbacks and gaps in the previous safety measures and the RISSB and other government organisations are trying to resolve through better infrastructure and risk management models. Therefore, it can be concluded that the report is definitely contextual and tries to put some light on the entire Australian railway safety and security measures and its future.

Reference

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Artc.com.au. (2018). About ARTC – ARTC. Retrieved from https://www.artc.com.au/about/

atsb.gov.au (2016) Derailment of train 3MP5. Retrieved from https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5773216/ro-2016-005-final-report.pdf

Gou, B., Ge, X., Wang, S., Feng, X., Kuo, J. B., & Habetler, T. G. (2016). An open-switch fault diagnosis method for single-phase PWM rectifier using a model-based approach in high-speed railway electrical traction drive system. IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, 31(5), 3816-3826. Retrieved from https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7180401/ 

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Madigan, R., Golightly, D., & Madders, R. (2016). Application of human factors analysis and classification system (HFACS) to UK rail safety of the line incidents. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 97, 122-131. Retrieved from https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/104357/20/ApplicationofHumanFactorsAnalysisandClassificationSystemtoUKRailSafetyoftheLineIncidents_AcceptedPaper.pdf 

Meran, A. P., Baykasoglu, C., Mugan, A., & Toprak, T. (2016). Development of a design for a crash energy management system for use in a railway passenger car. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part F: Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit, 230(1), 206-219. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0954409714533321?journalCode=pifa 

ntc.gov.au. (2008). National Rail Safety Guideline Accreditation of Rail Transport Operators. Retrieved from https://www.ntc.gov.au/Media/Reports/(B7724FAA-6611-1064-5FC5-A392396199E0).pdf

Onrsr.com.au. (2017). RAIL SAFETY REPORT 2016–201. Retrieved from https://www.onrsr.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/20514/Rail-Safety-Report-2016-2017-web.pdf

Parkinson, H. J., & Bamford, G. (2016, April). The potential for using big data analytics to predict safety risks by analyzing rail accidents. In 3rd International Conference on Railway Technology: Research, Development and Maintenance, Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy (pp. 5-8). Retrieved from https://www.digitalrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/The-Potential-for-Using-Big-Data-Analytics-to-Predict-Safety-Risks-by-Analysing-Rail-Accidents.pdf 

rissb.com.au (2017). Rail Industry Safety Strategy 2016–2020. Retrieved from https://www.rissb.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/MK_RISSB04205_Safety-Strategy-Report_PRINT_160316.pdf

Schlechte, T. (2014). Railway Track Allocation. In Operations Research Proceedings 2012 (pp. 15-20). Springer, Cham. Retrieved from https://depositonce.tu-berlin.de/bitstream/11303/3421/1/Dokument_49.pdf