Post Tranche 1 of the New Approach

Post Tranche 1 of the New Approach

Information relating to the Operational and Safety Impacts:

This section of the New Approach website presents the business case for the New Approach to the Rule Book project, which incorporates estimates of costs and benefits to the industry as a whole. Input was obtained from the affected parts of the industry.

A cost benefit assessment of the New Approach was undertaken on behalf of the industry and was based on a 25 years assessment period. It incorporates optimism bias using principles defined by HM Treasury; optimism bias has been applied on most items at the maximum value of 66%. It is stressed that a substantial benefit of the New Approach is thought to be in the area of engineering possession and protection management and this has not yet been factored into the business case model.

General appraisal assumptions are consistent with those outlined in the RSSB guide to estimating the benefits of research at the proposal stage of the lifecycle. In summary the cost benefit assessment has used:
• 2002 price and discounting base.
• Discount rate of 3.5% for first 30 years, with 3.0% thereafter.

Inflation is assumed to be in line with forecast RPI for all costs and benefits. Therefore, all prices are constant in real terms. RPI forecasts within the model are based upon the HM Treasuries February Edition of ‘Forecasts for the UK economy’.

In summary the business case developed so far demonstrates a best case benefit to cost ratio of 4:1 over a 25 year basis and a worst case of break even over the same period.

The expected benefits from the New Approach are:
• Improved operational resilience.
• Greater assurance of maintained or improved safety benefits.
• Opportunities for optimised training for each company.
• Greater control of procedures and changes at company level.
• Reduced document costs.
• Less frequent changes to Rule Book documents.

Improved operational resilience has been assessed by an estimate of train performance minutes saved with quantification at the rate of £30 per minute. The analysis has been informed by a number of sources, including:
• Detailed performance work originally done by RSSB for the project ‘Service recovery from extensive signalling failures’, published in October 2008. This illustrates that changes to one module are capable in theory of delivering an overall performance benefit of between £1.04m and £1.55m per annum.
• A performance improvement project run by Network Rail which adjusted section running times on the Watford – Euston DC Lines and produced a reduction in delay minutes exceeding 100,000 minutes per annum.
• The experience of a train operator in securing performance improvements through joint performance improvement plans with Network Rail.

Greater assurance of maintained or improved safety benefits has been determined by making an assessment of the events in the Safety Risk Model that have Rule Book related precursors. A conservative estimate has been made of the effect that the New Approach would have on the Rule Book element of the event. This has then been expressed as Fatalities and Weighted Injuries and monetised using the Value of Preventing a Fatality, which is shown in the cost benefit assessment.

Opportunities for optimised training result from the potential to cover rules-related training in a shorter timeframe and thereby enable industry to either reduce time spent on training overall, or to utilise training time in additional value-adding ways. Opportunities would exist in respect of new industry entrants refresher briefings for existing staff.

Greater control of company processes will result with the removal of material in the Rule Book that ought to be covered at the level of company instructions. These include those current rules that are associated with training and legislation. This will give companies more freedom over how they carry out those tasks, where it was not necessary to have a single national approach. For example, this would apply to shunting activities at specific locations where rules can be customised to meet the requirements of the depot protection systems.

Reduced document costs resulting from the reduction of the number of published pages. These benefits were calculated based upon estimates for Tranche 1. The actual reduction of published pages was approximately 50% for Tranche 1 and is estimated to be 35% for tranches 2 to 4 and 10% for tranches 5 to 12.

Less frequent changes to the Rule Book modules will affect Railway Group members in two ways. Fewer rules would result in fewer proposals for change and a consequent reduction in the number of consultations.

Other benefits include:
• Reduction in possession costs.
• Reduction of the carbon impact and subsequent environmental benefits caused by the production of less paper.
• More consistent decision making.
• Enhancement of processes for continuing professional development.

Costs associated with the New Approach are primarily associated with:
• Drafting and approval of the New Approach.
• Industry training costs for the New Approach.
• Printing and publication costs.
• Revision of Competence Management Systems.

Drafting and approval of the New Approach includes the drafting of the Rule Book modules and associated handbooks. It also includes the seconding of subject matter experts from industry partners, the appointment of Industry Leaders to champion the Fundamental Operational Principles and the peer reviewing and consultation of the new documents.

Trainer costs have been estimated for all staff based upon the average charged for the introduction of GSM-R. Other information such as preparation and trainer to delegate ratio was provided by workshop attendees from the industry.

Printing costs to support the New Approach have been provided by Willsons as well as expected delivery costs.

The cost of revising Competence Management Systems (CMS) and other company procedures as a result of the New Approach has been estimated, based upon the inputs and discussions at industry workshops. Of the 200 CMSs it is assumed that 70% of the changes required will take one day of effort whilst the remaining 30% will take up to 10 days.

Information relating to the Safety Benefit:

A review of hazardous events in the RSSB Safety Risk Model (SRM) was undertaken. For each hazardous event, precursors that were controlled all or in part by the Rule Book were identified. For example, fewer rules through targeted handbooks and more competent staff will lead to a reduction in risk. This is also dealt with at ground level industry consultation. Professional judgement was then used to identify how much the New Approach to the Rule Book could affect these precursors. Additional mitigations of consequences, due to Rule Book controls after a hazardous event has occurred, were not estimated. A conservative bias was used in performing the expert judgement for the following reasons:
• There is no basis or precedent upon which to judge how far ‘deficient or sub-optimal presentation of rules’ will affect their correct application, nevertheless, it is intuitive that rules that are clearer, less cluttered and more easily comprehended are more likely to be applied correctly; the question is one of degree.
• Improvements in competence management and the standard of competence provide the more direct value in risk reduction.

All safety impacts were considered, ie a reduction in risk, as a result of clearer rules engendering improved safety performance. It is assumed that where elements of the Rule Book have been removed, because they are either duplicated in legislation, or should be part of company training material or instruction, then these are picked up by companies as appropriate, and there is no decrease in safety performance.

For future tranches work is currently being undertaken to review data to analyse safety and performance evaluation. The work being undertaken as part of the New Approach in order to capture information regarding number of incidents that relate to the following examples:
• Failure to follow rules.
• Failure to follow instructions.
• Ignorance of rules.
• Ignorance of instructions.

The output from the New Approach is assumed to have a safety benefit of 0.245 fatalities and weighted injuries per year (FWI/year), which is broken down as follows:

Work on the first tranche of rules has emphasised simplification in order to improve the safety of track workers. In addition, opportunities have been identified that have the potential to facilitate efficiencies and remove barriers to achieving performance benefits. For example, Tranche 1 has resulted in a proposal to reduce the number of situations in which a handsignaller is appointed from four to two.