The Rail Safety and Standards Board Podcast

In this episode, we're joined by Tom Lee, our Director of Standards at RSSB. 

We discuss specific challenges in safety and satisfaction for customers, how we’re helping industry overcome them, and what a renationalised network might mean for those we serve.

Find out more at: https://www.rssb.co.uk/our-business-plan

With us for this episode is Rachael Everard, our Director of Sustainable Development at RSSB. 

We explore some of the sustainability challenges the industry is up against and how we’re planning to help overcome those. We also revisit the Sustainable Rail Blueprint, showcasing some positive member stories from its implementation. 

Find out more at: https://www.rssb.co.uk/sustainability/

In this episode, we're joined by Chris Knowles, RSSB's Director of System Safety and Health.

We’ll explore some specific challenges to rail reliability and resilience, why it’s vital to address them, and some of the solutions that RSSB is offering in this space.

Find out more at: https://www.rssb.co.uk/our-business-plan

In this episode, we're joined once again by Johnny Schute, RSSB's Chief Operating Officer.

Together, we'll explore what rail needs to be thinking about in terms of driving cost reduction, some of the complexities around investing today for benefits tomorrow, and how we at RSSB are committed to supporting industry in this challenge. 

Find out more at: https://www.rssb.co.uk/our-business-plan

In this episode, we're joined once again by Vaibhav Puri, RSSB's Director of Sector Strategy and Transformation.

Together, we'll explore some of the issues inherent in the adoption and implementation of new technology, our initiatives in this area, and some of the most promising new technological advancements.

Find out more at: https://www.rssb.co.uk/our-business-plan

In this episode, we're joined by Andrea Rossi. Andrea is the CEO of DB Cargo UK and a non-executive director on the RSSB Board.

Together, we'll explore the current rail freight landscape, what the future might hold for the sector, and how RSSB fosters collaboration and innovation to ensure continued safety and growth in this area. 

Find out more at: https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/freight-safety 

In this episode, we're joined by Rich Godwin. Rich is the Chair of industry's Trespass and Suicide Prevention Working Group. He's also a Suicide Prevention Co-ordinator at Network Rail, North West and Central Region.

Optimising safety and satisfaction for passengers is vital for both RSSB and Network Rail. So, today, we're discussing how industry has been coming together to drive down numbers of trespass and suicide incidents.

Find out more at: https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/trespass-and-suicide

And have a look at www.railsuicideprevention.co.uk, which is designed to help you...

Welcome to our first podcast of 2025! With us today is Stacey Head, our Sustainability Manager. She’ll be speaking with us about some of the initiatives the Sustainable Rail Blueprint has prompted in its first year, how RSSB supports members to embed the Blueprint, and what the future holds for it.

Find out more at https://www.rssb.co.uk/sustainability

In this episode, we're delighted to be joined by Mike Brown, Chair of the RSSB Board. 

He's with us for the final episode of 2024 to round up the year the rail industry has had, discuss the changes it might see in 2025 and beyond -- as well as how to navigate them -- and reflect on what the festive season means for many rail workers.

Find out more at https://www.rssb.co.uk

Happy holidays. We'll be back in 2025!

This is the third and final episode in our Rail Industry Road Safety Week miniseries.

This episode, we're joined by Rik Wenham, an investigator in the Commercial Vehicle Unit of the Metropolitan Police. Rik discusses the important processes of responding to and investigating road traffic accidents, covers how the police work with the parties involved, and shares advice on how best to manage occupational road risk. 

Content warning: This episode contains mentions of mental ill-health, suicidal ideation, and completing suicide. If you’d like to skip over this discussion, please jump from 02.26...

This is the second episode in our Rail Industry Road Safety Week miniseries.

This episode, we're joined by Jamie Mills, a Section Manager at Network Rail. He speaks with us about his experiences of managing an employee who experienced a road traffic accident in the line of work. Jamie discusses what he did in the immediate aftermath to support the employee and what came next to drive down future risk.

Find out more at https://www.rssb.co.uk/managing-occupational-road-risk

This is the first episode in our 2024 Rail Industry Road Safety Week miniseries. 

In this episode, we're joined by Dave Whelan, a train manager at GB Railfreight and someone who experienced a work-related road traffic accident. Dave speaks with our host, RSSB's Principal Health and Wellbeing Specialist Joana Faustino, about what led to the accident, his life in the aftermath, and what GBRf has done since.

Find out more here: https://www.rssb.co.uk/managing-occupational-road-risk

This month, we're speaking with Helen Costello, RSSB's Director of Business Management and Performance. 

She’ll be speaking with us about the biggest hurdles rail is facing at the moment, some of the solutions that RSSB has developed to help overcome these, and the value they’re generating for industry. 

Find out more at https://www.rssb.co.uk/strategic-business-plan-2024-29

This month we're joined by Vaibhav Puri, RSSB's Director of Sector Strategy and Transformation, to speak about the value of industry-wide collaboration for the rail sector.

As well as the benefits, Vaibhav touches on how RSSB facilitates this collaboration, what 'good' looks like, and some challenges and misconceptions. He also discusses the role that collaboration will play in innovation and creating a strong future for rail.

Find out more at https://www.rssb.co.uk/

We're joined this month by Johnny Schute, our Chief Operating Officer. Johnny speaks with us about RSSB's unique whole-system perspective and what that means for the GB rail industry. 

He touches on the value it generates, the efficiencies it enables, and how it helps us strive for safety while also ensuring cost reduction, revenue growth, and improved service reliability and resilience for our members.

Find out more at https://www.rssb.co.uk/our-business-plan

This month we're joined by Marcus Dacre, RSSB’s Head of Risk and Safety Intelligence.

He talks with us about the importance of having good quality health and safety data in the rail industry. Marcus also covers the work that got us to this point, what the future holds, and the improvements we're making to SMIS to aid better data capture. He finishes up with a discussion of some standout stats from our 2024 Annual Health and Safety Report.

Find out more at rssb.co.uk/risk-and-safety-intelligence

Welcome to another episode of the RSSB podcast! This month we're joined by Dougie Hill, who is Chair of the National Freight Safety Group. He talks about the freight landscape in 2024, what it'll take to safely meet the government's rail freight growth target, and what RSSB is working on to make this happen.

Find out more about the NFSG here: www.rssb.co.uk/national-freight-safety-group

Welcome to another episode of the RSSB podcast! This month we're joined by Tracy Orlandi, who is Head of Wellbeing and Occupational Health at East Midlands Railway. She talks about the progress being made in rail employee health and wellbeing, areas where gaps remain, and what it'll take to elevate health to the same level as safety in the rail industry.

Correction at 01.23: The RSSB mental health survey was conducted in 2021.

For more information on the health workshops Tracy mentioned, contact Clare.Forshaw@rssb.co.uk.

This month we're joined by Thom Rawson, RSSB's Sustainable Rail Principal, to talk through the impact the Sustainable Rail Blueprint has had so far. He also covers how we're helping rail organisations embed it, how we're facilitating industry collaboration on sustainability, and what's next.

Find out more at https://www.rssb.co.uk/sustainability/the-sustainable-rail-blueprint

Welcome to another episode of the RSSB podcast! Today, join four members of our Executive Committee — Johnny Schute (Chief Operating Officer), Keith Hanlon-Smith (Chief People Officer), Hannah Kingsley (Chief Finance Officer), and Paul McLaughlin (Chief Commercial Officer) — as they outline industry's current challenges, discuss RSSB's priorities in addressing those, and introduce our new 'strategic multipliers'.

You can find out more about our 2024–2025 Annual Business Plan at: https://www.rssb.co.uk/about-rssb/who-we-are/our-business-plan.

Welcome back to a new season of the RSSB Podcast. In this episode, we’re joined by RSSB Chief Executive Mark Phillips. Mark takes us through our five-year Strategic Business Plan covering 2024–2029, pulling out some of the key priorities along the way. He’s particularly excited to see how rail can leverage some of the technological and digital advancements taking place. Listen now to learn more about what we’re hoping to deliver to industry in the next few years.

Related information

Strategic Business Plan 2024-2029: https://www.rssb.co.uk/about-rssb/who-we-are/strategi...

Rail has been the most environmentally-friendly form of long distance transport for many years, and now needs to reduce its carbon emissions even further. George Davies, director of sustainability at RSSB, and Martin Watt, counsel at global law firm Dentons, discuss the challenges and opportunities of net zero carbon for rail.

The significant trends in safety risk from 2022-2023, and what's being done to keep our railway one of the safest in the world.

01:19  About Robert Sigrist
01:55  The work of the RSSB Risk and Safety Intelligence Team
02:55  The significant safety findings for 2022-2023
04:03  Changes in public behaviour, trespass and sitting on the platform edge
05:09  The trend in signals passed at danger
06:16  Issues around asset integrity, the whole system risk model
07:20  Some safety statistics, summary and close

Related information:
The Annual Health and Safety Report: https://www.rssb.co.uk/s...

Are you getting the best value from your assets? Could your asset management approach be improved? In this episode we look at ISO 55001 as a possible framework for better asset management.

00:53  Asset management in today’s economic context

01:59  What to include in an asset management approach

02:15  Which framework to use for asset management

03:23  What’s in ISO 55001

04:25  The what to do, not how to do it

04:48  Understanding the context of your own organisation

05:40  Why a rail organisation would want to adopt ISO 55001

06:40  Selecting the standard...

As RSSB celebrates its 20th year, this episode looks at the work that it has done to  help improve safety at level crossing, one of the biggest sources of risk for the railway.

 00:57 About Michael Woods

02:00 The Ufton level crossing accident described

03:32 How Michael got RSSB involved

04:56 RSSB directors brief ministers and help secure RSSB’s future independence

05:54 Looking at new technologies to improve level crossing safety

08:37 Reviewing the ideas sent on for safety improvements

11:04 Proposals for rail vehicle and track design improvements

12:29 Impr...

Finding the right people to fill vacant roles can be difficult. Steve Womack of Amey Infrastructure Wales talks about how he has found workers with transferable skills. He's also contributing social value to his local area by employing ex-offenders. 
Hear about lessons from a steep learning curve and the benefits to be found.

01:41 About Steve Womack

02:31 Getting involved with the Pathway Programme

04:00 Finding the right candidates for the right roles

06:00 The response of staff to working with ex-offenders

07:39 Gareth’s involvement and experience with the programme

08:51 Gar...

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch does what it says on the tin. It looks at both accidents and incidents to find their underlying causes. No blame is laid, but recommendations for mitigations are made; some of which may be around organisational culture.

Here, two of RAIB’s accident investigators talk about a company’s safety culture, learning opportunities, and how the two work together to deliver an ever safer railway.

00:05 Introduction

01:37 About Tabitha

01:57 About Mark

02:38 Tabitha’s views on the connection between safety culture and learning

05:17 Mark talks...

This is the first in a series on specific health conditions. In this episode, recorded in Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, an RSSB employee talks with one of our health and wellbeing specialists about his experience of diagnosis, and the support received during treatment. 

00:43 About Deb Archibald

01:04 About Tavid Dobson and discovering his cancer

02:05 Tavid talks about his treatment options

02:30 Making sense and making decisions

03:34 The impact and support at work

04:31 The support mechanisms that worked for Tavid

05:37 How to respond and support

07:14 On m...

Colds, flu, and other respiratory illnesses always increase over the winter period. That list now includes Covid-19, which is still with us. So, how can we best protect ourselves from it and the others in the coming weeks and months? Claire Shooter, our Public Health Manager, explains what we can expect and do to stay as healthy as possible.

00.44 Claire explains when and why there are peaks in respiratory illnesses.

01.57 Why we know less about the current Covid situation.

02.54 What a rise in infections might mean for rail.

03.30 About Long Covid...

Standards are talked about very often within rail, so this podcast provides an introductory overview. It describes what standards are, when rail started using standards, what the different types of standards abbreviations mean, how standards development is triggered, and where to find out more. 

00:37 Introducing Tom Lee, Director of Standards at RSSB

01:47 Brief definition of standards

03:17 When rail first started using standards, and why 

06:18 The organisations that produce standards relevant for rail, and the main standards abbreviations

11:31 The areas that standards cover

13:46 What causes a sta...

The railway is a very complex system. RSSB has developed tools for the industry to assess and target some hazards, but not all of them. Much of our risk analysis knowledge is based on the Safety Risk Model (SRM), now in version 9. One response to some identifiable hazards is to impose a blanket speed restriction. These can cover wide areas, and may themselves actually increase some types of risk.

Being able to identify specific parts of the network that may be susceptible to increased risk under certain environmental conditions can help. Building on the knowledge within the...

Achieving net zero carbon by 2050 will need more electrification of the GB railway. This episode looks at new and updated standards that don’t just make the requirements easier to understand. They also have the potential to deliver cost savings of well over £27m over five years. So, if you design OLE or AC-powered trains, you’ll want to listen to this episode.

01:24    About Mike Tatton

02:14    How standards are changed

03:43    Drivers of change for electrification standards

05:33    Who will be using these standards

06:42    What’s changed in GLRT1210, issue 3 

12:03    What’s...

Overspeeding isn’t just an issue when driving trains. It happens on the roads as well. With nearly 10,000 road vehicles in its fleet Network Rail took steps to put numbers to it, and the findings were alarming. Hear what’s being done to tackle the problem and the outcomes so far.

00.48   About Simon Morgan
04.04   A definition for and consequences of road overspeeding.
05.15   The proportion of incidents that have overspeeding as a cause.
05. 56   What other causal factors contribute to overspeeding beyond individual choice.
06.05   Underlying culture of risk perception and the amount of overspeeding.
07.17   The potential fu...

Good decision making needs the support of good data. So, in this episode you can hear about the work that goes into assuring data quality, and the people behind it.

00:46 Introducing Siona Vass

01:43 About data quality and why it’s important

03:29 How RSSB measures data quality

04:26 Industry’s involvement in improving data quality

06:15 Continuous improvement and when data quality is ‘good enough’

07:26 How RSSB monitors data that might be missing or under-reported

08:51 The role for leaders in supporting data quality

10:16 What would happen if we di...

SMIS is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2022. Hear something of its history, its reason for being, and what it has done for our industry. How SMIS supports risk modelling and safety decision making.

 00:48  Introducing Kevin Thompson

01:16 The origins of SMIS after the 1988 Clapham rail crash

02:39  How SMIS functionality and technology have developed

03:34  The components that make up SMIS today

05:26  How SMIS supports RSSB’s work

06:36  How SMIS helps rail companies

07:08  How RSSB supports SMIS users

08:36  The value that SMIS delivers to risk modelling and decisi...

Good information makes for good, evidence-based, safety critical decisions. Much of that information comes from data in the railway’s Safety Management Intelligence System, SMIS. This podcast looks at what’s being done and planned to make it easier and more efficient to use.

01:34 A bit about Paul Murray

01:58 About SMIS and how it is used

02:56 Why we continually improve and simplify SMIS

03:36 Less data, but more effective

04:18 Who’s been involved in the SMIS programme

04:57 Update releases and their benefits

06:07 Faster, easier data in...

Assets are everywhere. They are the things, physical and digital, that make up the systems we work with. When they work as designed and planned, to meet their objectives, the people who manage them go un-noticed. But these are the people who keep the risk of using them as low as reasonably practicable.

00:56 Chris Knowles, an introduction

02:07 Asset integrity and why it’s important

03:42 The whole lifecycle of asset management

06:54 The asset management is needed to keep risks as low as reasonably practicable

07:58 The criticality of system design

...

Safety Culture is everybody's business. In the first of a new series Ellie Burrows, Chair of the System Safety Risk Group, talks about the role of leaders in embedding safety culture. She describes the need for a fair culture and how that works to support safety learning.

01:43 Ellie Burrows, an introduction

02:20 What Safety Culture means to Ellie

03:54 Ellie’s role in leading and supporting the development of Safety Culture

04:56 The essential tasks for leaders of Safety Culture

06:07 Traits and characteristics for leaders of Safety Culture

07:39 The need fo...

RSSB’s work with BowTie risk analysis has made it easy to visualise operational hazards, their precursors and mitigations. At LNER they’re applying the method in a novel way, to develop a corporate risk register. To identify the hazards faced in running a train operating company.

01:29 Introducing Ian Baulch-Jones

02:55 Ian recaps risk analysis and how BowTie analysis works

04:58 What LNER is doing with BowTie analysis

06:30 Why BowTie analysis?

08:08 Has anybody done this before?

08:54 The benefits envisaged in using the Bowtie Method.

09:56 How long is this...

Not just a certificate for the wall, but a seven step guide for how to support your employees and colleagues towards better mental health.

00:00 A little bit about mental health at work

01:47 Meet Faye Bacon

02:14 About the Railway Mental Health Charter

02:42 How the Charter helps companies support mental health

03:28 Action 1, the importance of senior leaders’ support

04:45 Action 3, increasing awareness around mental health

05:26 Action 6, effective people management for mental health

06:06 Action 4, creating an effective peer-to-peer support system

06:22 Action 7, signposting mental health support re...