Workforce safety
We need to better protect workers on the track, as well as those in depots.
There were two workforce fatalities in 2022/23, both in road traffic collisions, highlighting that road traffic accidents remain a large risk area for members of the workforce.
While out of scope of this report due to their locations, a further two fatalities occurred to members of the workforce. The first took place at Gatwick Airport station, where a member of staff was struck by steelwork from a crane; the second was a fall from height in Glasgow. While not included in the fatality numbers in this year’s AHSR, we must learn from these events as they reflect hazards that are also present on the railway.
Network Rail’s Safety Task Force, launched in 2019, has now finished its programme of work, resulting in a significant reduction in open line working. This has led to a fall in the numbers of near misses with track workers (see chart). But near misses are still occurring, as those at Teignmouth and Penkridge have demonstrated. Through our regular monitoring, we have also identified a rise in the number of incidents of protection being incorrectly located or placed, and we still see trains being signalled towards line blockages and possessions. Both error types have the potential to lead to high-consequence events.
New technology is being introduced, which could help address some of these issues. Geofencing of protection limits could be one solution, but questions remain about how much risk will be mitigated, cost, and the functionality of these systems. RSSB is helping Network Rail to explore and answer these questions.
Depots also make up a large part of the risk to members of the workforce, and RSSB has worked hard to get a better understanding of the risk profile of depot workers. Some of the larger risk areas have now been explored with bowties, which are now live on the BowTie library, the latest being depot electrical safety. This in turn will be used to put together more depot-specific guidance on managing electrical risk.
Episode 64 of RSSB’s RED safety video series focuses on depot safety, the development of the depot environment and the changing risk profile. But it is not all about safety: reports from CIRAS show health and wellbeing issues to be the most identified theme in depot-related reports (see chart), showing that we need to be aware of health and wellbeing as well as safety risk.