Do we Overcompensate for Risk?
How can we respond better to climate change?
Rail is a safety-critical industry, and at a time of strong financial pressures, senior leaders may worry that procedures and tools are requiring the industry to overcompensate. RSSB’s new Whole System Risk Model is designed to help prevent industry overcompensating in response to climate risk.
While frontline staff and managers have the challenge of ensuring safety procedures are implemented throughout operations, rail executives have the challenge of ensuring the financial health and strategic direction of the company. An important issue for them to address is identifying unnecessary duplications, inefficiencies or processes that overcompensate for risk. This is a challenge in any industry, but in a safety-critical industry this is an even bigger challenge. Add in climate change, where adverse weather events seem to be increasing in frequency and severity, and identifying processes that overcompensate for risk can seem an impossible ask.
However, all is not lost. Sometimes the industry has been overly cautious in its response to risk, and inadvertently caused itself significant problems elsewhere. While standards and tools are often seen as prescriptive ways of doing things that don’t prevent rail being overly cautious, recent research by RSSB, and the resulting Whole System Risk Model, are designed exactly to prevent overcompensation.
The research was about the blanket speed restrictions Network Rail applied following extreme rainfall to parts of the network at risk of earthwork collapse. Before the research, Network Rail’s cautious approach was understood to be within reason, but there were concerns that the knock-on effects on other parts of the network would cause significant delays or safety issues.
The research found that although blanket speed restrictions on the network were justified, some characteristics of the local network need to be considered before imposing speed restrictions there. A blanket approach would sometimes result in rail overcompensating for risk. This research and the Whole System Risk Model are enabling effective action by rail and preventing overcompensation.
The big story underlying all of this is data and how evolving digital technologies can help us make the best use of it. The value of individual companies sharing data for the benefit of the whole industry has long been extolled within rail. This emphasises the point that data can be put to analytical uses that were not envisaged when it was originally collected. From data we can derive insights we know we need to anticipate.
Data can also enable us to understand more about previously unanticipated risks. This is especially the case when data and its analyses are understood as information for the whole industry’s improvement, not as implied criticism of individual organisations. Indeed, without collecting and sharing data, our ability to engage with previously unanticipated risks is seriously reduced.
Sometimes insights from data analysis will be surprising. Data collected now may turn out to be more valuable, or differently valuable, than we currently expect. The relationship between observing phenomena, data gathering, data sharing, data analysis, and operational and strategic guidance, is iterative and ongoing. Collaboration between industry and RSSB’s data analysis experts is essential if the full benefits from data analysis are to be realised.
As digital data capabilities develop at increasing speed and sophistication, and as climate change unfolds with increasing impacts from extreme weather events, the need for partnership working on data analysis has never been more important.
Read about our research ‘Development of a system risk model for extreme rainfall events’ for more information.
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Sometimes the industry has been overly cautious in its response to risk, and inadvertently caused itself significant problems elsewhere.
