Developing and Maintaining

National Rail Safety Regulation

Jeff Potter, Project Director –

Productivity, Safety and Environment 6 March 2013

Australian Transport Council’s vision (2008)

“Australia requires a safe, secure efficient, reliable

and integrated national transport system that

supports and embraces our nation’s economic

development and social and environmental well-

being.”

National Policy Framework

Australian Transport Council’s direction (2008)

To develop regulatory impact statements for a single

national regulator in rail safety and investigation

National Policy Framework

Australian Transport Council’s decision (2009)

To implement a single national rail safety Regulator and

to develop a Rail Safety National Law, which the

Regulator will administer

National Policy Framework

Rail Safety National Law

Standing Council on Transport and Infrastructure

decisions

• Approval of Rail Safety National Law – November

2011

• Approval of final Regulations for Rail Safety National

Law – November 2012

• Commenced operation 20 January 2013

Rail Safety National Law

Key features

• One body of law

• One Regulator to administer the law

• Changes to law need agreement of all jurisdictions

• Co-regulatory approach retained

• Overarching duty to manage the safety of railways –

so far as is reasonably practicable

Rail Safety National Law

Maintenance of the Rail Safety National Law

• Changes to law need agreement of all jurisdictions

• NTC establishing a maintenance process

• First priority is to address train communication and

data logger/event recorder requirements

Rail Safety National Law

Maintenance of the Rail Safety National Law

• Changes to law need agreement of all jurisdictions

• NTC establishing a maintenance process

• First priority is to address train communication and

data logger/event recorder requirements

• Role of technical standards

Status of standards

Approved or endorsed standards:

• National Standard for Health Assessment of Rail

Safety Workers

• Approved codes of practice

• Regulator-approved standards and guidance

Other standards:

• Documents offering advice on how to comply with

obligations under rail safety law

• Includes industry and academically-developed

standards

Legal Status

Mandatory:

• Standards can be mandated by legislation or

regulation

• An operator’s safety management system can

make compliance with a standard mandatory

Non-mandatory:

• Industry standards

• Guidance material

Setting rail safety standards

• Rail safety national law is based on co-regulation

• Provides ability (and responsibility) for operators:

• to determine what risks they face

• determine how to how best to manage them so far

as is reasonably practicable

Role of government

• Provide overall legislative and regulatory framework

• Establish performance-based obligations and specific

duties necessary to achieve acceptable levels of

safety

• Intervene when practice falls short of acceptable level

of performance

Agreeing rail safety standards

In developing and agreeing standards caution is needed

to avoid:

• Over-prescriptive safety management measures

• Liability shift from operator to regulator/government

Over-prescriptive measures

• Temptation to use standards to prescribe a specific

type of “proven” safety measure.

• This could inadvertently precluding the adoption of an

equally effective, but less costly alternative

• It can also block the development of new, better

solutions

Liability shift

• A risk is that government-mandated standards may

be viewed as a set of comprehensive “instructions”

• This may result in:

• Not managing the risks particular to a rail operation

that may not be addressed in a given standard; or

• Not going beyond minimum acceptable actions and

adopting a continuous-improvement approach to

safety management

Conclusions

• Rail safety standards are a compliance tool –

effectiveness is dependent on how they are used

• Developing and applying national standards must

recognise the diverse risk profile of rail operations

• Distinction between delegating responsibility to

operators in determining how to comply with rail

safety law, and telling them how do it

• Industry standards, Regulator’s guidelines and

Ministerially-approved codes of practice provide

means of delivering on safety objectives, while

avoiding overly-prescriptive and restrictive measures

The National Transport Commission leads regulatory

and operational reform nationally to meet the needs of

transport users and the broader community for safe,

efficient and sustainable land transport

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