Managing current and future risks
Our BowTieServer Library is your go-to resource for risk mapping and mitigation.
Ben GilmartinPrincipal Risk and Safety Intelligence Analyst, RSSB
Highlighting and mitigating potential risk areas is vital in the operation of a smooth, safe rail network. Since its development in the 1990s, the bowtie method has proven a powerful deep-dive risk analysis tool for industries managing safety—especially for determining how effective risk controls are.
The bowtie method is popular in the aviation, chemical, and mining sectors. And rail is using it more and more. It identifies a certain hazard and highlights the control measures needed to prevent, mitigate, and manage it.
Bowties are so named because of their shape. Picture it. In the centre of a bowtie is the knot. And in the bowtie model, this is our core hazard. Feeding into that ‘knot’ from the left are the multiple possible triggers for the hazard. And branching out from the ‘knot’, to the right, are the many possible options for mitigation, coupled with some consequences should the hazardous event occur.
Indeed, bowties are visual tools. This means they’re accessible by people across all levels of an organisation. They also encourage a consistent approach to discussing and managing hazards. And in an industry like ours—with so many interconnecting interfaces, stakeholders, and moving parts—bowties can be an invaluable tool.
Our extensive collection of bowties provides a high-level view of a range of critical industry hazards and how to manage them.
We’ve created bowties on:
health and wellbeing
public behaviour
occupational road risk
onboard trains
train operations
work-related violence
and many more.
They’re all developed using expertise from across the industry. This means they capture a comprehensive selection of possible hazards and risk control measures in a range of scenarios.
We endeavour to make all our work applicable to as many rail organisations as possible. But you might find that you have a slightly different need or a distinct set of possible scenarios.
That’s why, to understand the effect of local operations, you can use the generic models in our library to create your own bowties. Just ask us for the model you’d like to use as a basis, and we’ll send it to you in the best format for you.
The applicability of bowties isn’t limited to the present. What’s particularly useful about them is that they can help us understand what happened in the past and also explore what might happen in the future.
Using bowties to analyse and get ahead of emerging risk areas, like cybersecurity or hydrogen powered trains, can help influence early discussions and make appropriate, proportionate decisions. And developing them in the wake of an incident can help identify any weak spots in our control measures and give us key insights on future risk management improvements. It’s this versatility that makes the bowtie method such an effective risk analysis tool. Also, because they capture potential hazards and control measures in a visual format, it means that your whole team can use and understand bowties. And in turn, this means that more people can get involved in ensuring safety.
The bowties in our dedicated library can help your organisation stay one step ahead of the hazards inherent in the rail industry. It’s worth your safety and risk teams checking them out.
Have your team check out our BowTieServer Library for access to bowties covering health, safety, operations, and more.
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