Roundtable: HOF & Safety Culture in Rail

The UIC’s Virginie Papillault, Manager – Human and Organisational Factors & Safety Culture, and Frédéric Henon, Head of Operations and Safety:

“It is now accepted and recognised by all managers, whatever the industry, that taking into account Human and Organisational Factors (HOF) and developing a safety culture, articulated around and within the corporate culture, contributes to achieving a high level of operational performance, the basis of which is safety. This is particularly the case in the railway sector, where there are still many interfaces.

The International Safety Platform of the International Union of Railways (UIC) and its members promote the effective and operational consideration of HOF and safety culture through the development of new tools and associated processes that can improve, strengthen, and encourage the sharing and development of knowledge in this area.

To assess the results of the implementation of this positive safety culture, several tools exist and others are being developed. The UIC International Safety Platform is convinced that the exchange of experience between peers is one of the keys to finding good practices, making them common and shared on a large scale, but adapted to each organisation.

In addition, the UIC is working closely with the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) to follow up on the ‘safety climate’ survey and to define action plans to meet the needs identified and to define, for example, the change management processes corresponding to the good practices to be adopted.

We are convinced that all actors in the railway ecosystem need to join forces and find constructive compromises to foster a culture of learning, sharing, and moving towards a mutualisation of knowledge, skills, practices, and experiences in the field of HOF and safety culture in the railway sector.”

This roundtable discussion, which we are pleased to moderate, gathers stakeholders from different areas of the industry who provide opinions on the best ways to exchange experiences and good practices on HOF, the value of safety climate surveys, and understanding lessons learned and what tools are required to better support future HOF development in the railway sector.”

Participants:

• Nora Balfe, Human Factors Specialist, Irish Rail
• Noor Mousaid, Safety Manager, LINEAS
• Serge Poncet, Rail Safety and Operations Deputy Director, LISEA
• David Smith, Commercial Director, OnTrac Ltd