The Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006

Regulation 18B

[F1 SCHEDULE 11 U.K. Common Safety Targets

Textual Amendments

F1 Schs. 8-11 inserted (31.12.2020) by The Rail Safety (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (S.I. 2019/837), reg. 1, Sch. para. 1 (as amended in Sch. 11 paras. 14, 16, 17 by S.I. 2019/1310, reg. 1(2)(c), Sch. 1 paras. 2, 3, 4); 2020 c. 1, Sch. 5 para. 1(1)

Application U.K.

1.   This Schedule applies to the mainline railway. M1

Marginal Citations

M1 This Schedule substantially reproduces the provisions of Commission Decision 2009/460/EC on the adoption of a common safety method for assessment of achievement of safety targets, Commission Decision 2012/226/EU on the second set of common safety targets as regards the rail system, and Commission Implementing Decision 2013/753/EU amending Decision 2012/226/EU on the second set of common safety targets for the rail system, insofar as they continue to have effect in Great Britain following the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union and with amendments to address deficiencies arising out of this.

Interpretation U.K.

2.   In this Schedule—

“fatalities and weighted serious injuries” (“FWSIs”) means a measurement of the consequences of significant accidents combining fatalities and serious injuries, where 1 serious injury is considered statistically equivalent to 0.1 fatalities;

“level crossing users” means all persons using a level crossing to cross a railway line by any means of transportation or by foot;

“national reference value” (“NRV”) means a reference measure indicating the maximum tolerable level for a railway risk category;

“others” means all persons who are not passengers, staff or employees including the staff of contractors, level crossing users or unauthorised persons on railway premises;

“passenger-km” means the unit of measure representing the transport of one passenger by rail over a distance of one kilometre;

“passenger train-km” means the unit of measure representing the movement of a passenger train over one kilometre;

“risk category” means one of the railway risk categories specified by Article 7(4)(a) and (b) of the Directive;

“risk to society as a whole” means the collective risk to all categories of persons listed in Article 7(4)(a) of the Directive;

“safety enhancement plan” means a plan to implement the organisational structure, responsibilities, procedures, activities, capabilities and resources required to reduce the risk for one or more risk categories;

“staff or employees including the staff of contractors” means any persons whose employment is in connection with a railway and is at work at the moment of the accident; it includes the crew of the train and persons handling rolling stock and infrastructure installations;

“track-km” means the length measured in kilometres of the railway network where each track of a multiple track railway line is to be counted;

“train-km” means the unit of measure representing the movement of a train over one kilometre; the distance used is the distance actually run, if available, otherwise the standard network distance between the origin and destination must be used;

“unauthorised persons on railway premises” means any persons present on railway premises where such presence is forbidden, with the exception of level crossing users;

Measurement units for NRVs and CSTs U.K.

3.   The measurement units for NRVs must be expressed in compliance with the mathematical definition of risk. The consequences of accidents which must be considered for each of the risk categories are the FWSIs.

4.   For the purpose of assessment of achievement of the NRVs for the passenger and level crossing user risk categories, compliance with one or both of these NRVs must be considered sufficient. U.K.

Principles for the assessment of achievement of NRVs and CSTs U.K.

5.   The following principles apply for assessing achievement of NRVs and CSTs—

(a) for each risk category for which the NRV is equal to or lower than the corresponding CST, the achievement of the NRV also automatically implies the achievement of the CST;

(b) the assessment of achievement of the NRV must be carried out according to the procedure described in paragraph 8 and the NRV represents the maximum tolerable level of the risk to which it refers, without prejudice to provisions of the range of tolerance laid down in paragraph 10;

(c) for each risk category for which the NRV is higher than the corresponding CST, the CST represents the maximum tolerable level of the risk to which it refers;

(d) the assessment of achievement is to be carried out in compliance with the requirements deriving from the impact assessment.

6.   The assessment of achievement of the NRVs and CSTs must be carried out annually by the Office of Rail and Road, taking into consideration the most recent four preceding reporting years, including those years in which the assessment of achievement of the NRVs and CSTs in the United Kingdom was conducted by the European Railway Agency. U.K.

7.   The outcome of the assessment of achievement referred to in paragraph 5 is to be classified as follows— U.K.

(a) acceptable safety performance;

(b) possible deterioration of safety performance; or

(c) probable deterioration of safety performance

and published by the Office of Rail and Road.

Procedure for assessment of achievement of NRVs and CSTs U.K.

8.   The procedure for the assessment of achievement of NRVs is composed of four different steps as described in the following paragraphs. The overall decisional flowchart of the procedure is shown in paragraph 15, where positive and negative decisional arrows correspond respectively to a ‘passed’ and a ‘failed’ result of the different assessment steps.

9.— (1) The first assessment step must verify whether the observed safety performance is complying with the NRV or not. U.K.

(2) The observed safety performance must be measured by using the measurement units listed in paragraph 14 and data gathered by the Office of Rail and Road in respect of railway accidents and related consequences, with time series which must include the most recent years of observations as specified in paragraph 6.

(3) The observed safety performance must be expressed in terms of—

(a) safety performance in the single most recent reported year; and

(b) moving weighted average (MWA), as specified in paragraph 13.

(4) The values returned must then be compared with the NRV, and if one of these values does not exceed the NRV, the safety performance is to be considered acceptable. If this is not the case, the procedure must continue with the second assessment step.

10.— (1) The second assessment step must consider the safety performance to be acceptable if the MWA does not exceed the NRV plus a 20% range of tolerance. U.K.

(2) If this condition is not satisfied, the Office of Rail and Road must obtain the specifics of the single highest-consequence accident, in terms of FWSIs, in the most recent years of observation as referred to in paragraph 6, excluding the years used to set the NRV.

(3) If this single accident is more severe, in terms of consequences, than the most severe single accident included in the data used for setting the NRV, it must be excluded from the statistics.

(4) The MWA must then be recalculated to check whether it lies within the abovementioned range of tolerance.

(5) If this is the case, the safety performance must be considered acceptable. If this is not the case, the procedure must continue with the third assessment step.

11.   The third assessment step must verify whether it is the first time in the last three years that the second assessment step did not return evidence of acceptable safety performance. If this is the case, the outcome of the third assessment step must be classified as ‘passed’. The procedure shall continue with the fourth step, whatever the outcome of the third step may be. U.K.

12.— (1) The fourth assessment step must verify whether the number of significant accidents per train-km, with respect to the previous years, remained stable or decreased. The criteria for this appraisal are whether there has been a statistically significant increase in the number of relevant significant accidents per train-km. This must be evaluated by using an upper Poisson tolerance bound which will determine the acceptable variability based on the number of accidents that occurred in the member States of the European Union. U.K.

(2) If the number of significant accidents per train-km does not exceed the abovementioned tolerance bound, it is assumed that there has not been a statistically significant increase, and the outcome of this assessment step must be classified as passed.

(3) Depending on the risk category to which the different NRVs under assessment of achievement refer, the significant accidents to be considered for carrying out this assessment step are as follows—

(a) risks to passengers: all relevant significant accidents;

(b) risks to staff or employees, including the staff of contractors: all relevant significant accidents;

(c) risks to level crossing users: all relevant significant accidents included in the risk category of level crossing accidents;

(d) risks to unauthorised persons on railway premises: all relevant significant accidents included in the risk category of accidents to persons caused by rolling stock in motion;

(e) risks to others: all relevant significant accidents;

(f) risk to society as a whole: all significant accidents.

Moving weighted averaging process for the annual assessment of achievement of NRVs U.K.

13.   For each of the risk categories to which the MWA is applied for carrying out, in each year Y (starting from Y = 2010), the assessment steps described in paragraphs 9 to 12, the following phases must be applied for calculating the MWA_Y

(a) calculation of the annual observations OBS_i returned by the corresponding indicators in paragraph 14 after providing as input the relevant data for the relevant years (the index i takes the values as defined in the formula in sub paragraph (e));

(b) calculation of the 5-year average (AV) of annual observation OBS_i;

(c) calculation of the absolute value of the difference ABSDIFF_i between each annual observation OBS_i and the AV. If ABSDIFF_i < 0.01 * AV, the ABSDIFF_i is attributed a constant value equal to 0.01 * AV; M2

(d) calculation of the weight W_i by taking the inverse of ABSDIFF_i;

(e) calculation of the MWA_Y as follows—

where i is a natural number and x = Y – 6; N = Y – 2.

Marginal Citations

M2 Asterisks in this paragraph have been used to indicate multiplication signs.

Measurement units for NRVs and CSTs U.K.

14.   The following table sets out the measurement units for NRVs and CSTs.

Risk category	Measurement units	Scaling bases
1. Risks to passengers	1.1 Number of passenger FWSIs per year arising from significant accidents/Number of passenger train-km per year	Passenger train-km per year
	1.2 Number of passenger FWSIs per year arising from significant accidents/Number of [F2 passenger-km] per year	Passenger-km per year
2. Risks to staff or employees, including the staff of contractors	2. Number of employee FWSIs per year arising from significant accidents/Number of [F3 train-km] per year	Train-km per year
3. Risks to level crossing users	3.1 Number of level-crossing user FWSIs per year arising from significant accidents/Number of train-km per year	Train-km per year
	3.2 Number of level-crossing user FWSIs per year arising from significant accidents/[(Number of Train-km per year x Number of level crossings)/Track-km)]	(Train-km per year x Number of level crossings)/Track-km
4. Risks to others	4. Yearly number of FWSIs to persons belonging to the category ‘others’ arising from significant accidents/Number of train-km per year	Train-km per year
5. Risks to unauthorised persons on railway premises	5. Number of FWSIs to unauthorised persons on railway premises per year arising from significant accidents/Number of train-km per year	Train-km per year
6. Risk to society as a whole	6. Total number of FWSIs per year arising from significant accidents/Number of train-km per year	Train-km per year

Textual Amendments

F2 Word in Sch. 11 para. 14 substituted (30.6.2023) by The Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 (S.I. 2023/540), regs. 1, 3(5)(a)

F3 Word in Sch. 11 para. 14 substituted (30.6.2023) by The Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 (S.I. 2023/540), regs. 1, 3(5)(b)

Decision flowchart U.K.

15.   The flowchart referred to in paragraph 8 follows.

Values for NRVs U.K.

16.   The following table sets out the values of the NRVs for the purposes of this Schedule.

NRV	Risk category	Value
1.1 (x 10-9)	Risk to passengers	2.73
1.2 (x 10-9)		0.028
2 (x 10-9)	Risks to staff or employees, including the staff of contractors	5.17
3.1 (x 10-9)	Risk to level crossing users	23.5
3.2		n/a
4 (x 10-9)	Risks to others	7.00
5 (x 10-9)	Risk to unauthorised persons on railway premises	84.5
6 (x 10-9)	Risk to society as a whole	120.0

Values for CSTs U.K.

17.   The following table sets out the values for the CSTs.

Risk category	CST value (x 10-6)		Measurement units
Risk to passengers	CST. 1.1	0.17	Number of passenger FWSIs per year arising from significant accidents/Number of passenger train-km per year
	CST 1.2	0.00165	Number of passenger FWSIs per year arising from significant accidents/Number of passenger-km per year
Risks to staff or employees, including the staff of contractors	CST 2	0.0779	Number of employee FWSIs per year arising from significant accidents/Number of train-km per year
Risk to level crossing users	CST 3.1	0.710	Number of level-crossing user FWSIs per year arising from significant accidents/Number of train-km per year
	CST 3.2	n/a	Number of level-crossing user FWSIs per year arising from significant accidents/[(Number of Train-km per year x Number of level crossings)/Track-km)]
Risk to others	CST 4	0.0145	Yearly number of FWSIs to persons belonging to the category ‘others’ arising from significant accidents/Number of train-km per year
Risk to unauthorised persons on railway premises	CST 5	2.05	Number of FWSIs to unauthorised persons on railway premises per year arising from significant accidents/Number of train-km per year
Risk to society as a whole	CST 6	2.59	Total number of FWSIs per year arising from significant accidents/Number of train-km per year]