Rail industry

Speirs, F. and C. W. Johnson, Safety Culture in the face of industrial change a case study from the UK Rail Industry, University of Glasgow, Scotland, May 29, 2002. 

Dorrian, J., Baulk, S. D., Dawson, D. (2011). Work hours, workload, sleep and fatigue in Australian rail industry employees. Applied Ergonomics, 42, 202-209. 

Kath, L. M., Marks, K. M., Ranney, J. (2010b). Safety climate dimensions, leader-member exchange, and organizational support as predictors of upward safety communication in a sample of rail industry workers. Safety Science, 48, 643-650. 

Even Lord Cullen, as quoted by the HSE, recommended a no-blame culture to the British Rail industry when he said,... 

The Ladbroke Grove Inquiry report recommends that a strategic safety management leadership team be established within each company in the Rail Industry [HSC, 2003]. This should be led by the Chief Executive of each organisation, with support from... 

We begin this chapter with a brief overview of the concept of economic deregulation, as implemented both in the U.S. electricity industry and in other industries. We then discuss the approach taken in this book to understanding the effects of deregulation on nuclear power safety. In particular, our approach rests on a detailed review of how economic deregulation has affected safety in three other industries with important similarities to the U.S. nuclear power industry—namely, the U.S. air and rail industries, and the nuclear power industry in the United Kingdom (U.K.). 

The majority of this book (Chapters 2 through 7) is devoted to our case studies of the U.S. air and rail industries and the U.K. nuclear power industry. In particular. Chapter 2 summarizes the available literature on the effects of... 

While the 1958 Transportation Act provided some relief to the rail industry, large portions of the rail industry [still] faced serious problems... (Teske et al., 1995, pg. 41). By 1973, several railroads in the northeast United States faced bankruptcy. Because of these financial strains, these railroads had spent less on maintenance (Keeler, 1983). The financial difficulties of the railroad industry during this period resulted in the Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973 (the 3-R Act). The 3-R Act focused on reorganization of the northeastern railroads under federal control. This reorganization resulted in the formation of Conrail, as well as the abandonment of about 3000 miles of track. 

While the evidence is mixed, it appears that improvements in the financial health of railroads probably played a critical role in improved railroad safety performance. Tliis conclusion is based on several important aspects of the rail industry ... 

The liability structure for the rail industry provides incentives for safe service. 

The rail industry provided significant improvements in its safety record between 1910 and 1960. This was during a period when railroads were largely self-regulated in terms of safety issues. 

The responses of corporate management to our questions often differed sharply from those of labor, while the FRA seemed to weigh in as a more neutral observer. Overall, however, the respondents were surprisingly candid. In the next section, we summarize our interviews with rail industry representatives. (Some of the quotes that follow have been slightly edited to protect the confidentiality of our sources.)... 

While fatigue has always been an important safety issue, our respondent informed us that the FRA has recently increased its focus on the problem. The FRA is concerned about both the increasing pressures to use overtime, and whether overtime has been properly reported. The pressure to use overtime stems from the fact that it is often more cost effective to pay overtime (despite the higher hourly wage) than to hire new employees. This is especially true in the rail industry, since training costs are substantial and benefits packages are generous. Furthermore, overtime provides a railroad... 

Both the aviation and rail industries exhibited significant shifts in the allocation of resources to equipment maintenance as a result of deregulation. In fact, in a review of the effects of deregulation in the rail, aviation, and other major industries, Winston (1998, pg. 98) observes that since deregulation, each... 

From an economic point of view, these types of changes make sense. In particular, while some have raised concerns that competition would reduce the amount of money available for maintenance, experience indicates that companies will generally expend the funds necessary to ensure the reliability of their product in a competitive market, while searching for the most cost-effective means to do so. Thus, the reductions in maintenance expenditures observed in the aviation field and the increased maintenance observed in the rail industry are not necessarily inconsistent. The airlines appear to have reduced the amount of money they spent on inefficient maintenance. By the same token, the railroads increased their investment in maintenance at exactly the time when deregulation of shipping rates led rail lines to become more profitable, and hence those investments became more worthwhile. 

The experiences of the airline industry with maintenance violations and falsification of records after deregulation, and the widespread concerns about under-reporting of safety problems identified in the rail industry interviews, raise another note of caution here. In particular, there is some indication that financial and union difficulties in the airline industry exacerbated the incentives for some airlines to cut comers on maintenance (Transportation Research Board, 1991, pg. 184). To the extent that deregulation causes similar stresses within the nuclear power industry, some companies may face similar incentives to ignore or under-report safety problems, and/or avoid regulatory sanctions by evasion rather than by enhanced maintenance efforts. This is consistent with the prediction that less effort may be devoted to issues that are perceived as gray areas, but can have unforeseen safety consequences. 

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