Safety Risk Model

The development and maintenance of the rail industry’s Safety Risk Model (SRM) is the responsibility of RSSB's risk team. The SRM is a quantitative representation of the potential accidents resulting from the operation and maintenance of the UK rail network. It comprises a total of 125 individual computer based models, each representing a type of hazardous event. A hazardous event is defined as an event or an incident that has the potential to result in injuries or fatalities.

The SRM is a risk management tool for industry stakeholders, and is used to quantify the significant causes and consequences associated with each of the 125 identified hazardous events. This enables users to identify key areas of risk associated with their operations and to prioritise their investment in safety, using a justifiable risk based approach.

The SRM is, where possible, populated using data from the rail industry’s safety related incident data taken from safety management information system (SMIS). The SRM also includes predictions of the risk contribution from low frequency but potentially high consequence accidents for which there is little or no relevant data available. Where little data exists the model makes use of structured expert judgement from technical specialists to populate the model.

The results of the SRM are published within the ‘Profile of Safety Risk on the UK Mainline Railway.’ The most recent version is Issue 5.5, which was published in May 2008. For a summary of this report, please click the link below.

The full version of the RPB can be downloaded electronically. To obtain a link to download the RPB please contact david.griffin@rssb.co.uk.