Safety Data – How To Capture It, How To Learn From It
In a three-article series, we explore where our unique approach to risk and decision-making supports a better, safer railway.
In the second piece, RSSB’s Jay Heavisides explains how the rail industry uses data to inform safety improvement, and the role of the Safety Management Intelligence System.
All businesses rely on data to make decisions. Rail companies are no different. However, the railway is also a system with interfaces and interconnecting parts. So data from one organisation or situation may be relevant to the risks in another organisation or situation. As a result, the railway needs the ability to capture data in a trusted location, and have that data analysed independently by a trusted party.
The Safety Management Intelligence System (SMIS) is the tool that helps make this happen.
SMIS is the rail industry’s on-line reporting and business intelligence software for recording safety-related events that occur on the rail network in Britain. The system supports the collection, analysis, and sharing of information about a wide range of incidents, which are reported by our members—the individual rail companies. That’s about 75,000 events each year.
It has been in operation since 1997, so this year celebrates its 25th anniversary! That’s 25 years of powering safety intelligence so that the industry is informed on how to make the railway safer. And we’ve come a long way…
The Hidden Report into the Clapham Junction train accident in 1988 recommended the development of a SMIS-like system. The forerunner was the called BRIMS (British Rail Incident Monitoring System), and this then evolved into SMIS, overseen by Railtrack’s System Safety Directorate.
The Cullen Inquiry into the Ladbroke Grove train accident in 1999 recommended that rail safety and standards were overseen by a new, independent body. This became RSSB, and SMIS came along with it. Since then, more improvements have been made. In2017 it had a complete revamp and a new IT platform. Keeping up with the industry evolution, further improvements are on the way to make SMIS quicker and easier to use.
Like other RSSB services, SMIS can be used by individual companies to look at specific, local situations. And it can used collectively, through RSSB and cross-industry groups, to inform the development of shared solutions including standards, research, systems, and schemes.
Reporting of the industry’s safety performance takes place at regular intervals. Each quarter we produce summaries of safety performance. These focus on key safety events and risks in relation to Leading Health and Safety on Britain’s Railway’s key risk areas. The reports show the trends of a number of safety performance indicators across the last few years. When adverse trends are identified, collective action can be taken to identify the cause, mitigate, and ultimately put performance back on track.
In addition to the quarterly summaries, more detailed safety performance reports are produced annually. RSSB's Annual Health and Safety Report comes out in July. It examines the range of risk experienced by passengers, the railway workforce, and members of the public, before considering areas that affect us all: train accidents, personal security, level crossings, and stations.
The data and analysis help industry track progress of its shared strategy, Leading Health and Safety on Britain’s Railways.
While the Annual Health and Safety Report looks back at past performance, SMIS data is also used to try to gather insights that provide foresight about future risks and issues. The Data Insights team have been doing ‘deep dives’ into SMIS data. They try to find links and trends between different data sets, which may provide clues and pointers that support future risk management.
SMIS is also used to inform the Safety Risk Model, the new interactive Precursor Indicator Model (PIM), business cases for R&D, and impact assessments for standards changes. It also provides transparency to government and the wider public about the railways’ safety performance.
All RSSB member duty holders use SMIS, so if you’re an RSSB member, make sure you are getting the most out of it. There’s a whole section on our website on SMIS which takes you through exactly what it is and how to use it.
In July we will be publishing the Annual Health and Safety Report for Britain’s railways. This is a key output from the Leading Health and Safety on Britain’s Railways strategy. Look out for our videos and publications!
