Safe at all times
Rail is the safest form of surface transport in Britain. Maintaining and improving safety will always be our number one priority.
Passenger safety
In 2009 we saw a continuing improvement in passenger safety. The safety risk to passengers associated with Network Rail activity fell nearly 15 per cent (from 0.252 fatalities and weighted injuries per billion passenger kilometres to 0.215 during 2009/10). We continue to strive for further improvement, particularly to prevent fatalities on the railway.
Workforce safety
The protection of our employees is of paramount importance to us, but tragically there were three fatalities in 2009/10 (2008/09: two). The impact of tragic incidents such as these cannot be over-estimated and maintaining and improving the safety of our workforce remains our priority.
Our workforce accident frequency rate (AFR), which makes up part of the industry safety target, continues to improve. The AFR in 2009/10 decreased by 30 per cent compared to 2008/09 (falling from 0.23 to 0.16 reportable accidents per 100,000 hours worked).
System safety
To keep our people safe we constantly review our tools and equipment, risk planning and control, leadership actions, competence management assurance, and safety communications. This year for example, we have improved communication of key safety messages to our frontline workers via our ‘Frontline Focus’ DVDs.
Safety 365
Our national workforce safety campaign, Safety 365, is built on the philosophy of keeping anyone who works on or around the railway, safe and healthy every minute of every day of the year. In 2010, we won a gold award for our Safety 365 film ‘What happened…' from the International Visual Communications Association (IVCA).
Level crossings
In 2009/10 we committed £10m to our national level crossing closure programme and now have agreements in place to close 391 user-operated crossings. We have also assessed the risk at every crossing throughout the country and are implementing risk reduction measures as appropriate.
Community safety
Our community safety team is dedicated to improving safety for all railway users and reducing crime on the rail network. Working with local organisations and the local community in hotspot areas around Britain we try to uncover the route causes of railway crime.
This year, our interventions have contributed to a 48.1 per cent fall in recorded trespass and vandalism incidents across the 100 hotspot areas we identified in 2008/09.
There is more information on our safety performance in our 2010 Annual Report and Accounts.