RSSB has published a new rail standard, giving industry a consistent way to assess and manage trespass. Katie Mumford, our Principal Rail Operations Specialist, tells more.
In Right Track 42, we discussed the work RSSB, Network Rail and British Transport Police have done with Liz Ballantyne to remind those responsible for managing trespass risk of the consequences when we get things wrong. Many will know that Liz’s son Harrison passed away in 2017 after he was electrocuted by overhead power cables while trying toretrieve a football from Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal. He was just 11 years old.
Tragic incidents like this will always lead us to ask what more can be done to reduce trespass risk. To help industry in this area, RSSB this year published a new standard, RIS-3786-TOM, which provides a framework for conducting trespass risk assessments.
Trespass is currently at a high level on the main line network and is showing no sign of decreasing. It goes without saying that there is a significant risk from harm, but there is also a risk to the service, with significant delay impacts, in the form of financial penalties for operators, and delay to the travelling public. There can also be a risk of prosecution and fines for operators, with the overall costs to industry of trespass incidents estimated to be around £100m every year.
Previously, existing methods of assessing and managing trespass risk were not consistent across the industry, which made it difficult to have a consistent approach and spot trends across the country. Clearly, we had to simplify and streamline the risk assessment process so that it could be applied everywhere in the same way. RSSB research developed a system that fit the bill so well that when it was published industry experts asked us to put the findings into a rail industry standard. So, with considerable input from and engagement with key industry groups and players, RIS-3786-TOM came into being.
The standard is designed to help anyone involved in assessing trespass risk to understand and analyse the risk, and then choose the appropriate measures to minimise the impact of a trespass event. The introduction of this common approach is expected to deliver an overall reduction in incidents, which will, in turn, reduce the harm from trespass. Resultant delays (and therefore costs) will drop, and passenger satisfaction and public safety will also improve, to the anticipated tune of £2.97m over five years.
Visit our standards catalogue for more on the new Trespass Risk Assessment rail standard.
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