Make smarter choices with our Cost-Benefit Analysis Tool
Our Cost-Benefit Analysis Tool combines industry best practice and optimised measures to give you peace of mind in your safety-related decisions.
Jasmin CollierEditorial Content Manager, RSSB
Change is something we in rail can get nervous about. With uncertainty comes anxiety—what will things be like on the other side? But change is part and parcel of the railway system. And being prepared to navigate it and come out stronger on the other side tips the scales towards success.
Our Cost-Benefit Analysis Tool was developed to help your organisation evaluate the cost of safety-related decisions. It supplements our Taking Safe Decisions framework.
Using it to weigh the advantages of a proposed change against its costs can give you peace of mind when it comes to deciding whether to implement it. The tool also helps you determine whether a measure is needed to meet the legal requirement of ensuring safety so far as is reasonably practicable.
Anyone involved in activities to improve safety, meet legal requirements, and achieve commercial goals will no doubt be familiar with Taking Safe Decisions.
The framework details the stages involved in the process of planning and decision making when proposing a change. It supports decision makers in managing risk and incorporating safety—at the point the change is made and beyond. It combines:
monitoring
selecting options for change
implementing a change safely
monitoring the change.
Of course, safety will always be your north star. But we know that cost reduction and revenue growth are key industry priorities, too. This is all the more reason to make sure you’re making improvements safely.
Our Cost-Benefit Analysis Tool, to be used with the Taking Safe Decisions framework, helps you examine safety changes and costs together. Its aim is to enable you to make the best decision for your organisation.
The Cost-Benefit Analysis Tool draws from a range of sources and measures to run a cost-benefit analysis for a safety-related decision. It brings together:
RSSB and Office of Rail and Road guidance, including the benefit-cost ratio calculation
the current Value for Preventing a Fatality estimation
optimised application of sensitivity factors to financing costs.
The four-step process, housed within an Excel spreadsheet, has users move through the following stages:
selecting the costs and benefits
reviewing the standard variables
entering the costs and benefits
reviewing the results.
There is a range of options available to select and analyse. From initial lost revenue to capital savings, the tool provides a full-picture view of all the financial implications linked to your suggested change.
Being able to examine these impacts in such granular detail, and in a way that’s consistent with industry good practice, will help your organisation maintain its financial health. And all the while, you’ll be keeping risk as low as reasonably practicable and keeping people safe.
Is your organisation about to make a safety-related decision? Ask your team to download our Cost-Benefit Analysis Tool to ensure they’re informed.
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