Question NW2427 to the Minister of Transport
13 September 2018 - NW2427
De Freitas, Mr MS to ask the Minister of Transport
(a) What rail safety plans are in place in each province, (b) how are the specified plans executed, (c) at what stage is the execution in each province, (d) what monitoring mechanisms are in place in each province, (e) what are the allocated budgets for each province for the current financial year, (f) what budgets were allocated for each province in the past three financial years and (g) what was actual expenditure in each province in the past three financial years?
Reply:
As mandated by the National Railway Safety Regulator Act, No 16 0f 2002, each operator is responsible and accountable for ensuring the safety of railway operations, while the Railway Safety Regulator (RSR) is accountable for providing adequate and appropriate oversight of the safety of railway operations.
a) Railway Operators submit annual Safety Management System Reports (SMSR) to the RSR and at the core of the SMSR is the Annual Safety Improvement Plan. The Annual Safety Improvement Plan contains the operator’s annual railway operational improvement plans that demonstrate how the operator has resourced themselves to mitigate the risks that they identify in their railway operations. The SANS 3000 standards guide the operators on the content of the plans.
Operators throughout the nine provinces have Safety Management Systems as mandated by the SANS 3000 series of standards. The Annual Safety Improvement Plan contains the Operator Risk Assessment, the Controls to reduce or mitigate the risks and the Targets aimed at reducing the incidents. The Action Plans are also found in the Annual Safety Improvement Plan of the operators.
b) The plan would, among measures, indicate how the operator plans to reduce level crossing incidents, people struck by train incidents (PSBT), collisions, derailments, theft and vandalism incidents, etc.
To mitigate the risks identified in each rail operator’s Risk Registers, the operators approve and execute COPEX and CAPEX Projects. For example, the Platform Projects by PRASA are aimed at mitigating the Platform Train Interface (PTI) incidents, the Walling Project at reducing the PSBT incidents, Re-signalling Projects at reducing collisions, etc.
c) Most of the key projects are at construction stages while some are at commissioning stages. The RSR conducts reviews on these projects through all project life cycle phases to ensure that the new works do not introduce new risks to the railway system and where these cannot be eliminated, that necessary mitigation measures are implemented.
d) The SANS 3000-1 standard specifies that incidents must be reported to the RSR. It states which incidents must be reported within 15 minutes, daily, etc. All reported incidents find their way into the Annual State of Safety Report. The RSR conducts Audits and Inspections on the operators to oversee their compliance towards their safety management systems and plans.
e) Not applicable
f) Not applicable
g) Not applicable