This site is the Australian Rail Industry's toolkit for safety culture assessment, improvement and good practice exchange designed for the rail industry.
It provides organisations with a safety culture self-assessment package, guidance on safety culture improvement and the opportunity to share good practices on all aspects of safety culture across the industry. RISSB provides additional help and guidance for ARA Members. At the present time usage of the toolkit is limited to ARA/RISSB members only.
RISSB would like to acknowledge the role of the Independent Transport Safety and Reliability Regulator (ITSRR) of NSW in providing a significant financial contribution to partially offset the initial set up costs in licensing the Safety Culture Toolkit from the RSSB UK.
A safety culture assessment allows an organisation to better understand how its people perceive safety and the company's approach to safety management. It allows the organisation to identify both strengths and weaknesses. This information can be used to support improvements in safety management. There are many approaches, but the Rail Safety Regulators expect rail companies to conduct and act on safety culture assessments.
Put simply, safety culture is "the way we do things round here", in other words how well the employees and managers work together to tackle safety issues. A good safety culture means that everyone shares a belief in the importance of safety and strives to ensure safety is managed properly and that it is always given high priority.
A safety culture assessment allows an organisation to better understand how its people perceive safety and the company's approach to safety management. It allows the organisation to identify both strengths and weaknesses that then enable it to continuously monitor and improve its approach to safety.
Following several major rail safety investigations, both in Australia and overseas, organisational safety culture has been implicated as a causal factor in the occurrence of rail accidents. It has been noted by several commissions of inquiry that a positive safety is a key to improving safety on railway networks. Consequently, the rail industry has devoted significant efforts to enhancing safety culture throughout the industry.
This site should be used by rail safety managers and supervisors involved in planning and implementing safety policy and safety management schemes.
The site is relevant to all rail companies -- regardless of your current level of safety culture: there is always room for improvement in terms of safety culture and the site will offer advice and good practice guidance specific to your current level of safety culture.
Also, if you have examples of good practice from schemes and methods you have found effective in improving attitudes and behaviours towards safety, this site offers an opportunity to share these with other members of the rail industry.