Development and management of safety

 1. When we describe an accident, we use past tenses. Look at the piece of Railroad Accident Report about fatal collision between a Super Voyager train and a car at Copmanthorpe. Find all past tense verbs.

 

Railway safety

There are currently different national approaches to railway safety, different targets and different methods applied. Technical standards, the rolling stock and the certification of staff and railway undertakings differ from one Member State to another and have not been adapted to the needs of an integrated European rail system.

In this connection, the Directive focuses on four major aspects:

• the setting up, in each Member State, of an authority responsible for supervising safety;
• the mutual recognition of safety certificates delivered in the Member States;
• the establishment of common safety indicators (CSIs) in order to assess that the system complies with the common safety targets (CSTs) and facilitate the monitoring of railway safety performance;
• the definition of common rules for safety investigations.

The Directive applies to the railway system of the Member States and covers safety requirements for the system as a whole, including infrastructure and traffic management, and the interaction between railway undertakings and infrastructure managers.

Safety rules and standards, such as operating rules, signalling rules, requirements on staff and technical requirements applicable to rolling stock have been devised mainly nationally. Under the regulations currently in force, a variety of bodies deal with safety.

These national safety rules, which are often based on national technical standards, should gradually be replaced by rules based on common standards, established by technical specifications for interoperability (TSIs). The new national rues should be in line with Community legislation and facilitate migration towards a common approach to railway safety. The Commission has the power to suspend the implementation of a national safety rule for a maximum of six months.

In this connection, the Member States will ensure that:

• railway safety is generally maintained and continuously improved, taking into consideration the development of Community legislation;
• safety rules are laid down, applied and enforced in an open and non-discriminatory manner;
• responsibility for the safe operation of the railway system and the control of risks associated with it is borne by the infrastructure managers and railway undertakings;
• information is collected on common safety indicators through annual reports in order to assess the achievement of the CSTs and monitor the general development of railway safety.

In order to coordinate the different rules, a distinction must be drawn between two sets of actors:

• infrastructure managers, which are bodies or companies responsible, in particular for establishing, building and maintaining infrastructure or a part of it, and safety. In some Member States, however, safety may be delegated to railway undertakings.
• Railway undertakings, which are public or private undertakings engaged in the supply of goods and/or passenger transport services by rail.