2023-S13 Setting and monitoring safety targets for urban rail transport

Justification of the recommendation

Urban rail transport is a new field of activity for the supervisory authority. Partly for this reason, the supervisory authority has so far not intervened in the development of operators' safety management systems or the safety situation in the sector in general. The authority has not prepared safety performance indicators, nor does it systematically monitor the safety situation and deviation reports submitted by transport operators.

Recommendation

The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency define safety targets and their monitoring methods for metro and tram traffic.

Specification of recommendation

Based on the investigation, metro and tram traffic cannot be treated as a single entity due to their technical and operational differences and, in particular, differences in operating environments. For example, tram traffic has many characteristics of road traffic. For this reason, metro and tram traffic require different safety performance indicators.

Reiterated in investigation: ---

Actions / explanations

The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency is in the process of drawing up a national rail transport safety policy, which will improve the safety of rail transport and lay down national priorities for raising the standard of safety. The safety policy will include national measures for improving safety, and its objective is to inspire operators to look at their own role in promoting the national measures and also potentially identify their own ways of contributing to the success of the national objectives. The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency notes that it is not legally authorised to impose universal safety objectives on operators. According to the Urban Rail Transport Regulation, each operator is responsible for identifying its own safety objectives. The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency’s position is that its safety policy will set the parameters within which operators are to identify the safety objectives of their respective organisations.