Our safety performance
We have two main safety measures: the Passenger Safety Indicator, which reports passenger safety risk associated with Network Rail activity, and the Fatalities and Weighted Injuries measure, which reports workforce safety. It is through these two measures that we monitor our contribution to the industry target of achieving a three per cent reduction in the risk of death or injury from accidents on the railway for passengers and rail workers over Control Period 4 (CP4: 2009-2014).
Passenger safety
Since 2008/09 we have seen a continuing improvement in passenger safety. Our Passenger Safety Indicator (PSI), which measures passenger safety risk associated with Network Rail activity, was at 0.171 (2009/10: 0.215), well ahead of our 2010/11 target of 0.246 and we are on course to meet our April 2014 target of 0.240. We continue to strive for further improvement to prevent injuries and fatalities occurring on the railway.
Workforce safety
The protection of our employees and the contractors who work on the railway is of paramount importance. Accidents and injuries to the workforce are monitored through the Fatalities and Weighted Injuries (FWI) measure. This compares the weighted number of personal injuries that are reported for all Network Rail staff and contractors working on our managed infrastructure, normalised per 1,000,000 hours worked.
This year it has been necessary to review the data in relation to accidents and injuries to the workforce. In June 2010, our Chairman requested an independent review of RIDDOR reporting by Network Rail staff and our contractors. The final report from the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) concluded that there had been significant under-reporting of ‘RIDDOR lost time injuries among staff and contractors since 2005.
The data for 2010/11 shows that our moving annual average (MAA) FWI measure is currently below target at 0.126 and has remained broadly level since last year (2009/10: 0.127). Our goal for the end of CP4 (2014) for workforce safety, as measured by the FWI, is 0.090. Sadly, there was one contractor employee fatality in 2010/11 (2009/10: 3). The impact of tragic incidents such as these cannot be overestimated and maintaining and improving the safety of our workforce remains our priority.
Implementing changes following the safety reporting review
Since last year, we have been working with the Office of Rail Regulation to develop a joint understanding of the improvements we need to make to achieve excellence in safety management.
We are developing a safety leadership and culture change programme, which will be led by a cross-industry team. Our aim is to develop an environment of zero harm, creating a safety culture by focusing on the psychological, behavioural and situational aspects of safety.
Level crossings
Since Network Rail’s £10m national level crossing closure programme commenced in 2010, 227 level crossings have been closed and at the end of 2010/11 there were agreements in place to close over 200 more.
We can't close them all but we can reduce risk for everyone: the public, passengers and our people. To achieve this, our new national level crossings team has a single objective: to reduce level crossing risk by 25% by 2014.
Community safety
We continue to engage with rail and level crossing users and local communities regarding safety, railway crime and misuse. Our regional community safety managers develop and implement our community safety strategy and are responsible for the delivery of our award winning No Messin’! and Don’t Run the Risk campaigns.
We have also continued work on our groundbreaking five-year partnership with Samaritans with the aim of reducing incidents of suicide on the railway by 20 per cent by 2015. Sadly, suicides continue to occur across the network with over 200 incidents recorded in the past year (2009/10: 236).
More information on our performance and approach to safety can be found in our Annual Report and Accounts and in our Annual Return.