Departures from accepted practices, in particular the reversion to dated, sometimes analogue working arrangements – often due to last minute decisions, external pressures and/or unforeseen events, are becoming widely recognised precursors to a range of incidents.
The issue has been raised to national priority status for the first time in a bid to address failures to identify and manage risks associated with degraded conditions and altered working arrangements.
ONRSR will be targeting rail transport operators to assess workers’ competency and training in these often ad-hoc processes and to make sure they understand the flow on effects of changes to working arrangements, particularly when this kind of working exposes workers to high demand tasks for extended periods of time.
When operations change from what is considered ‘normal’ operations (how the railway was designed to operate), they can enter a ‘degraded’ or ‘abnormal state’.
If the events that lead to these states are not managed safely to return to ‘normal’ operations, the risk to safety can become uncontrolled, and may lead to an occurrence.
ONRSR has called these types of events Altered Working Arrangements.
Or watch the ONRSR Digital Recreation - Altered Working Arrangements (click on the link below).