ONRSR may conduct inspections to assess whether a rail transport operator is in compliance with its obligations and responsibilities under the Rail Safety National Law (RSNL).
Inspections may be conducted in a range of circumstances, such as:
An inspection may be initiated as a proactive action for compliance monitoring (typically scheduled in our work program), reactively in response to an identified safety incident or issue, as follow-up to a notification of change or as a means of confirming the implementation of an operator’s safety action in response to a non-conformance report or statutory notice.
An inspection may also be part of ONRSR’s ongoing activities which target areas for risk management and prevention, such as when a safety audit has brought to light specific risk factors and/or where indicated by incident trends or operator-specific issues.
An inspection may involve witnessing railway operations, conducting a detailed review of any part of a rail transport operator’s operating methods and the application of processes and procedures from the safety management system, or an examination of records or other information generated by the system.
Inspections are generally conducted by two or more rail safety officers, one of which is identified as the lead officer for managing the conduct of the inspection and to be the primary contact for the operator.