Friday, August 8, 2025
Safety message: digital recreation #9 - Hazard Risk Analysis SFAIRP
Safety message: digital recreation #9 - Hazard Risk Analysis SFAIRP
A project team has established a construction worksite next to the intersection of an operational railway line and a main road.
The team is aware of a nearby level crossing, and an adjacent public access road, and notes the presence of a short cut that appears to allow traffic to bypass the level crossing’s advanced warning devices.
At the request of a local business owner the project team opts not to block the shortcut off when establishing its perimeter.
Passenger trains continue to use the line, through the nearby level crossing, and while the project team has erected signage for vehicles and advised its own employees not to use the shortcut, they did not report its use or the associated rail safety risk to the rail infrastructure manager, the rail transport operator or the local council
Over time the site becomes busier as vehicles continue to use the shortcut. One day a truck driver from a local business accesses the shortcut and in doing so is either unaware of the signage and the activated level crossing warning devices or disregards them.
The truck is struck by an empty passenger train, and tragically, the truck driver is fatally injured.
The investigation into this incident concluded that fault lay with all who had a responsibility for safety in relation to this location and the events that unfolded.
Fundamentally, the situation was the result of a serious failure to identify risks to safety – including inappropriate access planning and specifically the existence of the shortcut which enabled drivers to potentially bypass the warning devices in place for an active level crossing.
While the immediate cause of the incident was the truck driver accessing the rail corridor when the warning devices were active, a significant finding of ONRSR’s investigation was that the shortcut had been in use for a number of years.
The existence of the shortcut represented a failure of the road manager and rail infrastructure manager to thoroughly identify rail safety risks on and around the level crossing. Indeed, the investigation noted that there were likely many opportunities for the RIM to recognise this particular risk during routine inspections and to advise the road manager or rollingstock operators. Similarly there was an opportunity for the local road manager to raise the issue through its interface agreement.
The RIM and the project team should have conducted a site inspection or audit to address the risks at the location, a step that once again may have resulted in the identification of the risk posed by the shortcut.
Furthermore, the project team’s failure to pass on its observations of the shortcut being used prior to the accident, and that an obvious risk to rail safety existed, was also a contributing factor.
The investigation into this incident concluded that the existence of the shortcut for several years meant that the risk of the collision that eventually occurred should have been foreseeable.
ONRSR is reminding rail transport operators of their responsibility, as safety duty holders to manage the risks to safety posed by their operations so far as is reasonably practicable as part of their Safety Management System. This should include efforts to broadly examine interfaces between road and rail for potential hazards that may present a serious risk to rail safety.
Failure to do so can have serious or even fatal consequences and can also result in potential contravention of Rail Safety National Law and expose a duty holder to a range of penalties.
Accredited parties should familiarise themselves with ONRSR’s Safety Management System Guideline and the recently released Code of Practice: Train Visibility at Level Crossings.
These and other resources are available by visiting the ONRSR website or by contacting your local office.