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INSIDE
THIS EDITION+ CEO Message
+ Rail Human Factors Managers Group Meets
+ ONRSR Safety Message
+ Horizons Program Forum 4 Goes Virtual
+ Online Protection Officer Safety Critical Communications Course June Promotion
* Rail Skills Hub Webinar 14 June 2023
+ Become a Rail R U OK Conversation Champion
* People Spotlight On...2023 Rail Safety Award Winners
+ Did You Know?
CEO MESSAGEIt’s been great to see the 2023 Rail Safety Award winners that were announced at RISSB’s 23rd Safety Conference last month being recognised in RISSB Connect over the past few weeks, and to find out a little bit more about them and their passion for improving safety. I’m fortunate in that I get to see all sorts of great developments and innovations in our industry, but nothing gives me greater pleasure than to be able to recognise and acknowledge the
passion and capability of the people in our industry who are committed to making their workplaces safer. And there’ll be a further opportunity to recognise our industry’s high achievers at the 2023 Australasian Rail Industry Awards being held on 13 September and hosted by the ARA, RTAA, RTSA, PWI, IRSE & RISSB. There’s also an ongoing focus on rail reform, particularly in the technical and operating disciplines, to drive further safety and productivity improvements, with a lot of activity being driven through the National Transport Commission.
Rail Interoperability has been a focus of RISSB since its inception, and while an enormous amount has been achieved in harmonising the industry’s historical State-based operations and engineering standards, I think we all acknowledge that much more work is still required. The subject of Rail Interoperability will feature heavily at both the Conference on Railway Excellence (CORE) on 20 and 21 June and the UIC ASIA-PACIFIC Conference on Interoperability & Rail Harmonisation on 22 & 23 June, and I look forward to meeting those who will be attending those conferences.
Damien White
RISSB CEO
Rail Human Factors Managers Group MeetsOn Thursday, the cross-industry Human Factors Managers Group met; their remit is to provide leadership in rail in relation to the continuous improvement of human factors as a key discipline that contributes to safety and performance. During this meeting, we discussed our plans to update AS 7470 Human Factors Integration in Engineering Design - General Requirements, including how to contribute to the redevelopment of this publication.
Published in 2016, this Standard was prepared to support Human Factors Integration (HFI) into the engineering design process. It describes the requirements for organisations conducting or procuring engineering design activities, services or products to: *Incorporate human factors in their engineering design processes, *Ensure their products comply with the generic Human Factors requirements set out in this standard, and * Use the HFI process to identify the specific Human Factors requirements of the system or asset being designed, procured or modified.
Watch this space for announcements, including an invitation to participate in the cross-industry Development Group that we will form in the next financial year.
In the meantime, if you do have ideas for enhancing AS 7470, please make use of the “change request” feature that you will find on this page.
ONRSR Safety MessageThe ONRSR's most recent Safety Message highlights good practices and requirements for effective management of railway track infrastructure.
It draws attention to what a good safety management system should contain, including: * Asset details
* Indicative risks and controls
* Track infrastructure standards
* Systems and procedures for inspections
*Inspection records
*Defect management. RISSB Standards AS 7642 Turnouts and other Special Trackwork and AS 7635 Track Geometry are cited, but the good news is that we even have more titles that will help you mitigate risks. Two more that could benefit your business are:
AS 7639 Track Structure and Support
This Standard specifies functional, performance and design requirements for the track structure, and includes some ‘whole of life’ aspects of inspection, monitoring and maintenance requirements.
AS 7633 Railway Infrastructure Clearances
This Standard establishes general principles for railway infrastructure managers to manage clearances throughout the asset lifecycle, specifies a system for calculating appropriate clearances, and provides recommended dimensions.
RISSB has a vast catalogue of more than 220 publications including Australian Standards, Codes of Practice and Rules, which help industry improve safety, reduce costs and increase productivity and efficiency.
Search the current catalogue here for the right product for your business.
Horizons Program Forum 4 Goes Virtual Forum 4 of the Horizons Program was held virtually this week.
The innovative program saw the return of Horizons keynote speaker and tv host Steve Sammantino. Steve ran an interactive workshop on how to drive innovation in organisations. This was followed by a technical presentation on hydrogen fuel delivered by Jane Gillespie, Rail Team Leader at Arup.
To round out Forum 4, a thought-provoking session was delivered by Thriving Leaders on positive communication that had the participants thinking about the huge impact of self-talk. The last Forum for Horizons 5 is scheduled for 25-27th July in Sydney. Our final forum for Horizons Program 5.0 is another exciting two-day event that will feature technical presentations, leader panels and the delivery of team projects that the participants have been working on for the last six months.
Safety Critical Communications Course OfferSafety Critical Communications is an area of concern for industry and one of ONRSR's national priorities. Poor safety critical communications has been a contributing factor to many incidents across industry, including near-hits and runaways.
RISSB's online course in Safety Critical Communications targets problem areas for Protection Officers.
What the course covers:
* Safety critical communications within safe working
* Resolving safety critical communications
* Human factors in safety critical communications.
* The application of the Australian Network Rules and Procedures (ANRP)
* Duties of a Protection Officer.
For the month of June, we are offering an EOFY 25% off our normal course rates for our Safety Critical Communications for Protection Officers course to members and non-members. To book, simply send an email to training@rissb.com.au with the code PROCOURSE23 in the subject line before 30 June to take advantage of this offer. Or phone (07) 3724 0000.
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RISSB also has a Safety Critical Communications Code of Practice which it released in 2021.
This Code provides principles and practices for the transmission of safety critical communications by rail safety workers on the Australian rail network, including all heavy and light rail operations, and provides a reference for common terms and phraseology to promote harmonisation across all heavy and light rail networks. You can find this document here
Rail Skills Hub Webinar 14 June 2023The National Rail Skills Hub is holding a series of webinars to help the rail workforce manage the transition to greater use of smart systems. The first event, to be held on June 14, introduces Lido Costa, who led the implementation of Rio Tinto’s AutoHaul, the world’s first fully autonomous, heavy haul long distance railway system. The Preparing Your Workforce for Digital Change session will be held at 3pm. You can register your interest here. Become a Rail R U OK Conversation ChampionTrackSAFE Foundation and R U OK? are seeking expressions of interest from people to become a Rail R U OK? Conversation Champion. If you are interested in sharing your lived experience and want to be part of a bigger mental health movement, register your interest here: https://forms.ruok.org.au/231573021924955
PEOPLE SPOTLIGHT ON ...
2023 RAIL SAFETY AWARD WINNERSIn the coming weeks, we'll be introducing you to some rail safety champions and winners of our 2023 Rail Safety Awards. This week, we're pleased to introduce you to the winner of the coveted Emerging Leader Award. - Julian Popowicz.
The Emerging Leader Award is given to a new (less than 5 years) rail worker in the rail industry to recognise and encourage their contribution to the improvement of safety.
Q What is your name?
Julian Popowicz
Q What is your position?
Signalling Site Engineer at Downer Rail Systems
Q Who is your employer?
Downer
Q What does your job entail?
My job entails the preparation of permits, design review, cable and asset installations and site supervision of work crews.
I prepare the works to enable the work crew to get out on site safely and ensure all requirements are met before work commences.
Award winning safety achievements and passion for rail safety
During Covid-19, there was no way to track who was on site so coming up with a simple solution to create a QR code with important questions like Name, Number, Location of work allowed me to track who was on site and also give other supervisors and safety team the ability to track who was on site using the QR code. This shows my passion for safety by having the initiative to come up with a solution.
Q What is a fun safety fact?
Not many people know that Victorian and South Australian 3-position signalling origins stemmed from US practice, particularly the Pennsylvania Railroad practices, which is often referred to as "speed signalling". In the early 1900s a collective of Victorian and South Australian railway employees were officially invited to Pennsylvania to understand the application of speed signalling and travelled via ship for several weeks to reach America where they attained the knowledge to implement the fundamentals for 3-position semaphore signalling for Victoria and South Australia which is still recognised today. In both Victoria and South Australia, speed signalling was
implemented as upper quadrant, with marker lights positioned in contrast to two position signalling which was designed as lower quadrant. This made it easy to differentiate the two different types of signalling in the field.
Did You Know?Thanks to advances in technology, by 2050 zero emission locomotives might fully replace diesel powered locomotives on most railways of the world. Read more about battery-electric, electric-battery, and amonia/hydrogen-electric solutions here.
RISSB – Industry’s Partner in Co-Regulation
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