Safety Verification in the Heritage Railway and Tramway Sectors

30 October 2007
ORR/28/07

The Office of Rail Regulation today announced that it believes the safety verification requirements of the Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006 (ROGS) should be applied to heritage railways and tramways from October 2008, as planned. This would align these sectors with the rest of the railway industry and be the best way of delivering safety.

ROGS enable the sectors to make safety-related changes to rolling stock and infrastructure without the need for ORR approval. When an operator chooses to make a change that is both novel and introduces significant risk, ROGS requires formal safety verification of the change by the operator – a process that will be overseen by an independent competent person. ORR estimates this will be the case just five times a year across the tramways sector, and about 20 times a year across all of Britain's heritage railways.

ORR has worked with heritage railways and tramways since the Regulations came into force in April 2006 to understand and respond to their concerns. Meetings have been held, research undertaken, and the potential impact on insurance and costs explored. This has shown that safety verification should not impose unreasonable, unexpected or inappropriate burdens upon the sectors.

Linda Williams, ORR's Chief Inspector of Railways, said: "We have spent a great deal of time talking to the sectors, exchanging information and ideas and considering the impact of the regulations and remain of the view that safety verification is the best way of delivering safety. Our support does not stop here; but those who run heritage railways or tramways should take responsibility for managing risks, including those arising from the introduction of new or altered equipment.

“The approach set out in ROGS is consistent with the way health and safety law is applied in the rest of the railway industry, and also in other industries where the underlying assumption is that those who create risk are best placed to manage it.

“Our role as safety regulator is to ensure that proper arrangements are in place to do this. Safety verification helps both industry and ORR focus on their key responsibilities."

ORR has written to Transport Minister Tom Harris advising present legislation can be applied to the heritage railways and tramways sectors as planned. It has also written to the Heritage Railway Association and UK Tram to inform them of this.

Notes for editors

1. ROGS came into force in April 2006. They implement provisions of the European Railway Safety Directive. Tramways and most heritage railways are exempt from many of the regulations’ requirements, such as safety certification and authorisation. The safety verification process was originally intended to apply only to the light rail and heritage sectors but was extended to apply to the rest of the railway industry when the Department for Transport decided to change the scope of the interoperable network in Great Britain.
2. The government responded to concerns expressed by the tramway and heritage railway industries by agreeing to an extended lead-in period for introducing the safety verification requirements of ROGS. They can apply for approvals under the previous regulatory regime (the Railways and Other Transport Systems (Approval of Works, Plant and Equipment) Regulations 1994 - ROTS) for projects that will be completed by October 2010, as long as applications for those approvals are received by October 2008.  The rest of the railway industry had to apply for approval by October 2006 and be completing the projects by October 2008.
3. Under ROTS, ORR's Railway Inspectorate was responsible for giving final approval to projects introducing new or altered rolling stock or infrastructure to a transport system. Approvals under ROTS only applied to new or altered works that were capable of materially affecting the safe operation of a transport system. Under ROGS, ORR no longer approves changes made by duty holders.  Instead, duty holders must have a system of safety verification in place if they introduce something that is both novel and creates a significant new risk, or significantly increases an existing risk.
4. If a duty holder is introducing something that meets the criteria they have to use an independent competent person (ICP) to agree and oversee a programme of verification. ORR has worked with the sectors to understand their concerns about safety verification. It has undertaken retrospective analyses of the applications for approval received under ROTS. From these an assessment was made of whether the project would have required safety verification under ROGS. This showed that the likelihood of SV being required is low.
5. ORR has undertaken surveys to identify competent persons and the number of times safety verification was likely to be required in the coming years. The results indicated that the number of occasions where safety verification would be required is low, some operators in the heritage sector have independent competent person and they would be willing to share these with other operators.  There were relatively few responses from the tramway sector.
6. ORR has suggested innovative ideas to help the sectors. For example, ORR has:
   • mapped-out the skills required to undertake the role of an independent competent person in the heritage sector;
   • worked with the Edinburgh tram scheme, which is applying safety verification without any apparent difficulty to date, and secured agreement to develop a case study to share with the industry;
   • met with senior underwriters from the specialist insurance market who have indicated moving away from government approval to a system of safety verification would not significantly affect premiums.

Letter from ORR to Transport Minister Tom Harris: http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/dft_let_saf_ver-dec-291007.pdf
Letter from ORR to Heritage Railway Association: http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/heritage_let-saf_ver-291007.pdf
Letter from ORR to UK Tram: http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/uktram_let_saf_ver-dec-291007.pdf

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