Driving down the risk
We are helping the rail industry work
together to tackle road driving risk
Road driving risk affects everyone
Part of rail’s attraction is the high level of safety; train travel
is about 20 times safer than going by car. But many of us
still drive cars, vans and lorries as part of normal, everyday
life, either to get to and from work, or as part of work,
travelling between sites, offices and depots.
Currently, 5 people die on Britain’s roads every day. The
Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA)
calculates that ‘after deep sea fishing and coal mining,
driving 25,000 miles a year on business is the most lifethreatening activity we undertake - more dangerous than
working in construction’.
There are likely to be at least 75,000 road vehicles linked to
the rail industry, and the sector relies on the workforce being
able to drive them as part of daily duties. In the five-year
control period 2009-2014, 50% of infrastructure workforce
fatalities were road-related.
Different sectors have different experiences of the risk
involved.
Mobile operations managers, maintenance teams and
contractors may need to travel from job-to-job early in the
day or late at night, depending on the task in hand, and to
access very particular parts of the infrastructure, depending
on engineering schedules and incidents that occur.
Train operating companies may rely on taxi companies to
chauffeur train drivers to be at the right place at the right
time, well-rested for the start of their shift.
Work duties cover a range of activities from dedicated
professional drivers (HGVs, RRVs, PSVs) to essential and
occasional use drivers (grey fleet).
Historically road driving issues have not always been
considered because they tend not to be as evident as
traditional health and safety matters at work.
At least
75,000 road
vehicles linked to
the rail industry
People affected by road driving risk:
• Staff travelling between sites
• Mobile operations
• Maintenance teams
• Contractors and sub-contractors
• Rail-replacement bus drivers and passengers
50%
of infrastructure
workforce
fatalities were
road-related
(2009-14)
Vehicles
• Employees’ own vehicles
• Company-owned/hired fleet
• ‘Grey’ fleet
• Suppliers’ vehicles
• Taxis
• Replacement buses
What are we doing?
We are an expert body that helps the rail industry carry
out research, understand risk, set standards and improve
performance. We span the whole railway, including in our
membership infrastructure companies, train and freight
operators, rolling stock owners and suppliers to the industry.
We support rail in the areas of safety, standards, knowledge,
innovation and a wide range of cross-industry schemes
requiring our knowledge and independence.
We have helped the rail industry get to grips with the
issues by setting up a cross-industry group dedicated to
road driving risk, with crucial connections to other groups
devoted to particular parts of the rail business such as the
infrastructure contracting community, the train operating
community and other supporters such as the ORR, the HSE
and trade unions.
The Road Driving Risk Steering Group
feeds into the System Safety Risk Group,
and ultimately the RSSB Board.
Passenger train operators
ASSOCIATION OF TRAIN OPERATING
COMPANIES (ATOC) SAFETY FORUM
Freight operators
NATIONAL FREIGHT SAFETY GROUP (NFSG)
Infrastructure
contractors
INFRASTRUCTURE SAFETY LIAISON GROUP (ISLG)
RAIL INFRASTRUCTURE ASSURANCE GROUP (RIAG)
TRACK SAFETY ALLIANCE (TSA)
Helping the
industry to
collaborate on
road driving risk
Agency staff
suppliers
Infrastructure
Manager(s)
NETWORK RAIL: INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS,
NATIONAL SUPPLY CHAIN,
SAFETY AND SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT
Other
supporters
RAIL INDUSTRY CONTRACTORS
ASSOCIATION (RICA)
Plant suppliers
RAIL PLANT ASSOCIATION (RPA)
HSE, ORR, RoSPA, ACPO, RMT
Up to
40%
of all road
journeys are
work-related
This has created the platform for specific sectors within rail
to consider how road driving risk affects them and agree
common approaches to shared risks.
The nature of road driving risk means that different sectors
will experience different issues and the challenge for each
sector group is to explore what improved reporting and data
means to them and what they need to do to succeed.
Road traffic
collisions cost
the economy
£15bn to £35bn
a year.
Work driven by Road Driving Risk Steering Group has
included:
• Overseeing research on road driving fatigue so that
companies can raise awareness of the issues among
both managers and staff out in the field
• Providing a resource centre on road driving risk on the
RSSB website to help rail managers to understand and
share good practice and continually raise awareness
• Developing reliable arrangements for reporting and
analysing road traffic collision (RTC) events including
using shared information systems such as SMIS
• Evaluating and developing work-related road driving
principles for measuring performance of safety
management systems (SMS) across the rail industry
What could rail businesses be doing?
Every organisation is different and ultimately, will need to
develop its own approach to managing safety, taking into
account what the law requires as well as the specific duties
and issues they face.
However, we would encourage companies engaged in the
rail industry to consider whether the following would benefit
them:
• Consider how your business, your reporting processes,
your safety management system or even your own dayto-day work takes account of work-related road driving
risk
• Look at the shared resources we are developing on our
website, use them if they help your business and let us
know how they work for you
• Share your experiences of managing road driving risk
with the rest of the industry by getting in touch with us
- your story might make a great case study for others to
learn from
• Find out how your cross-industry sector group is working
with the Road Driving Risk Steering Group
• Get in touch with us with any questions, queries,
comments or ideas about these issues - we want to
hear from you and understand how we can shape
the campaigns, materials and activities in a way that
supports your own organisation
Providing road
driving risk
resources on our
website
Developing a
new approach
to reporting
road driving
incidents
For more information, contact RSSB –
www.rssb.co.uk
enquirydesk@rssb.co.uk
Creating the
space for rail
sector groups
to collaborate