29.11.16
RSSB insists DOO is safe in transport safety inquiry
The director of system safety at the RSSB, Dr George Bearfield, has defended the organisation’s decision to rate driver-only operated (DOO) services as safe to the Transport Select Committee.
Louise Ellman MP, the head of the committee, repeatedly asked Bearfield if the fact that he had said that the operators will have to do a risk assessment of DOO meant it wasn’t completely safe.
But Bearfield said that the risk assessment was a “legal requirement” and “a responsibility that sits with the duty holder companies”.
“As far as we’re concerned, DOO is safe,” he added.
Plans to expand DOO on Southern services have been fiercely controversial, with rail union RMT leading strike action on the grounds that the new system could compromise passenger safety and lead to guards losing their jobs.
The union is set to hold further strikes over Christmas, while Aslef announced yesterday that its members have also voted in favour of strike action.
RMT has also leaked a memo sent to RSSB non-executive directors, including Charles Horton, the chief executive of GTR, which states that guard redundancies would deliver “the greatest economic benefit”.
In the hearing, Bearfield defended the RSSB’s neutrality, arguing it is independent and works “in a consensus-based manner” with all parties in its safety judgements.
He pointed out that the RSSB had challenged the rail industry in the past, for instance by publishing a report in 2010 making recommendations for Network Rail to improve under-reporting of contractor injuries.
MPs also asked him why the RSSB had said in a March 2015 report that DOO was “only safety neutral if a range of mitigations were implemented” before issuing a recommendation, rather than a report, this year describing it as safe.
“I don’t think the statements are inconsistent,” Bearfield replied.
In addition, the committee raised concerns about evidence from Simon French, the chief inspector of rail accidents, in which he said that an incident at Hayes and Harlington where a passenger’s hand was trapped in a train door was due to “corporate memory loss” about safety procedures.
Yet Gary Cooper, director of operations, engineering and major projects at the Rail Delivery Group, insisted that the rail industry did learn from safety recommendations as part of “business as usual”.
He added: “I’m satisfied that we learn from the incidents. I’m also being honest that there is still, in some small cases, some of the time, memory loss.”
Have you got a story to tell? Would you like to become an RTM columnist? If so, click here.