Road risk
Work-related driving plays a vital role in the operations of Great Britain’s railway system. It involves the transportation of railway staff, engineers and maintenance crews to various locations across the network.
In 2022/23 there were two fatalities caused by work-related road traffic collisions. After several years without a fatality on the roads, there have now been three in the last two years. Collisions with third-party vehicles are the biggest reported risk to staff driving, resulting in 54 injuries in 2022/23.
But we still have issues with getting good data quality in this area; often investigations do not adequately drill down to the root causes of accidents. Without good, reliable data quality we cannot make the best risk-based decisions needed to improve road safety.
To aid investigations, RSSB has published the Road Traffic Collision Investigation Toolkit to help industry ensure road traffic collision investigations get to the root causes of each collision. The diagram on this page shows the investigation process to be followed in the event of a road traffic collision. By understanding the cause of any road traffic collision, steps can be taken to prevent it from happening again.
RSSB is supporting the National Highway’s driving for better business programme. The initiative is supporting the rail industry with a free set of online tools and resources to help you demonstrate leadership in the management and reduction of road risk.
Network Rail has developed a vehicle check app called ‘CheckedSafe’, which allows staff to meet their mandatory requirement to check vehicles for defects before they are driven. The app will reduce the likelihood of vehicles being driven with defects, reducing the probability of an accident occurring.
The number of CIRAS reports relating to road risk has remained relatively static over the past three years, with approximately 6% of rail reports in 2022/23 concerning road risk.