Learning from the past to inform the future of SMIS

It is an important truism that it is people who make the railway safe. The bedrock of SMIS has always been the prompt and accurate reporting of safety data by railway employees. So the 25th anniversary of SMIS includes a recognition and celebration of every act of data reporting, no matter how small. This includes any frontline employee who reports an accident or ‘near miss’, any investigator who identifies and records its causes and any person who logs it in company and national reporting systems. Thank you to everyone who has had a role in reporting one of the roughly two million events that have been entered into SMIS over the last 25 years!

The core purpose of SMIS is to improve railway safety. SMIS data has helped and continues to help identify emerging risks, prioritise safety improvement activity and make the case for investing – or not investing – in enhancements. 

SMIS origins and early years

The predecessor of SMIS was a system called BRIMS (British Rail Incident Management System). It was created after the 1988 Clapham Junction disaster to support a more holistic approach to safety management by bringing previously disparate datasets (such as for SPADs and signal failures) into one place.

In 1997, as Tony Blair’s New Labour swept to power to a soundtrack of Things Can Only Get Better, BRIMS was replaced by the first version of SMIS. The recently privatised operators agreed to share safety information far beyond legal reporting requirements. Initially there were restrictions on what other operators could see, but these were removed as trust grew and the value of information sharing became clearer. This increased after the Safety Risk Model was built at the turn of the millennium. The culture of reporting and sharing that grew alongside SMIS established the mantra of ‘no competition in safety. As a result, over time, operators have decided to extend the scope of SMIS further. 

Rail safety improved significantly during this period. There are many reasons for this but the risk and evidence-based approach that SMIS has enabled is important. Two examples give a flavour of the problems that SMIS has helped to solve.

In 2014, disagreement about appropriate actions when train radio was unavailable threatened significant industrial action and substantial financial damage. SMIS data and the Safety Risk Model helped establish consensus by identifying actions to minimise overall impact on safety. At different times over the years, operators have come under pressure to retrofit in-cab equipment and train doors. SMIS data has been used to demonstrate that the costs of this were grossly disproportionate to any safety benefit. This avoided tens of millions of pounds of unnecessary expenditure.

Bringing us to the present, a current use of SMIS data is to understand the high numbers of SPADs in July - September 2022 and identify effective mitigations.

SMIS today

SMIS was rebuilt in 2017. The original system, which had evolved over the years, was creaking and expensive to maintain. Initially, the new system did have teething issues, but the RSSB team and wider SMIS user community worked hard to resolve them. It’s thanks to their combined efforts that we are celebrating SMIS’ 25th anniversary at a high point in both data quality and user sentiment. 
Just as when SMIS was founded, today’s railway comprises many different companies, each collecting information about their own activities. By harmonising and pooling this information, SMIS provides a much richer dataset that supports benchmarking, good practice sharing and network-wide decision making.

SMIS in the future

The railway is entering a period of major change so it’s more important than ever to have a trusted source of safety intelligence. SMIS is this source and RSSB is undertaking major work to ensure it will remain fit-for-purpose in the future transformed railway.

Over 25 years, SMIS has helped to identify and solve innumerable problems. As SMIS celebrates a quarter of a century of valued service, we can look back with pride at the safety improvements it has helped make possible. We also look forward with optimism to a safe and data-enabled future. 
Happy birthday SMIS!