The European Committee has decided that methods for risk analysis for European railways shall be gradually introduced to ensure that a high level of safety is maintained and, when and where necessary and reasonably practicable, improved (2004/49/EC). By using the same method in different countries, the safety targets are more reliably and understandably proven in these countries. The relevant current European regulation in this respect are the decisions 402/2013 and 2015/1136. The regulation sets out a scheme of defining:
- whether changes in the railway systems are important;
- whether the changes and safety relevant;
- what are the safety risks (hazards) associated with the intended changes
and it provides principles for risk assessment and risk acceptance, depending on:
- whether a code of practise exists to mitigate the hazard in comparable railway systems - in that case this code of practise can be applied similarly without further hazard analysis;
- whether the hazard is existing in a reference system - in that case the same mitigating measures as for the reference system can be applied without further hazard analysis;
- the estimated risk and necessary mitigating measures needed to bring the risk level in the tolerable area.
Our ENGIRAMS consultants have created risk analysis files for railway organisations introducing significant safety-relevant changes in their systems, such as the introduction of changes to rail vehicles, the new interlockings, of radio block centers (RBCs), and for Automatic Train Operation (ATO) testing purposes.