ROGS: The Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006

ORR has commissioned Noble Denton BOMEL Ltd to undertake a three-year monitoring and evaluation exercise of the performance and impact of the Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006 (ROGS).

ROGS came into force in 2006. They put in place some of the main requirements of the Safety Directive on mainline railways in Great Britain.

We have taken the opportunity to introduce a common framework for safety across other methods of guided transport, such as metros, tramways and heritage railways, and have updated the law on safety critical work.

What has ROGS changed?

ROGS replaced several sets of railway safety regulations:

Who must comply with ROGS?

Transport undertakings - Any person or organisation that operates a vehicle in relation to any infrastructure. People or organisations that only carry out work in ‘engineering possessions’ (meaning sections of track closed to normal traffic for maintenance work) are not included. Only some of the duties in ROGS apply to them.
Infrastructure managers - Any person or organisation that is responsible for developing and maintaining infrastructure or for managing and operating a station and who manages or uses that infrastructure or station or allows it to be used for the operation of a vehicle.

What must I do to meet the requirements of ROGS?

The most important parts of ROGS are as follows:

Safety management systems

ROGS places a duty on operators to develop safety management systems that are capable of ensuring their transport system runs safely.
The safety management system should be adapted to fit the size and nature of the business – for a smaller organisation a simpler safety management system should be more appropriate.

Safety verification

Operators must show that they have procedures in place to introduce new or altered vehicles or infrastructure safely. Operators are now responsible for this. Where a new or significantly increased risk is involved, they must appoint an independent competent person (either an internal person from the organisation, or someone externally) to help them make sure they go through the right processes.

Safety certificates and authorisations

Under ROGS, no one is allowed to operate vehicles or manage infrastructure on UK railways unless they have obtained the appropriate safety certificate or authorisation from us. Applicants need to show how their safety management system allows them to run their transport system safely.

We will now focus on checking that safety management systems are effective and fit for the purpose they are being used for. Lower-risk sectors (tramways and transport systems that do not run at speeds above 40 kilometres per hour) do not need safety certificates, but must still have a written safety management system in place.

Risk assessments

ROGS place a specific duty to carry out risk assessments and put in place the measures they have identified as necessary to make sure the transport system is run safely.

Annual safety reports

Any transport operator who holds a safety certificate or authorisation must send us an annual report on their safety performance. More information can be found in annual safety reports.

Co-operation

ROGS also gives operators a duty to work together to make sure the transport system is run safely.

Safety critical work

Operators and their contractors have clear duties under ROGS to make sure their employees who carry out safety critical tasks are suitably compentent and fit to do so. This also includes making sure these employees are not affected by fatigue.

The impact of ROGS on the rail industry – emerging findings from independent research

Noble Denton BOMEL Ltd carried out a baseline survey in 2007 on the performance and impact of ROGS as part of a three-year monitoring and evaluation exercise. The second survey was carried out in 2008 and a report has been produced. (See related documents below).

The report provides a good indication that the ultimate objective of ROGS is on its way to being fully met. In other words, we are on our way to maintaining national standards of rail safety in line with EU requirements and are striving for continuous improvement.

This was illustrated when respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement with the statement:

“From experience, I believe that standards of safety are the same under ROGS”.

In the baseline survey 69% of the 26 respondents ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ that standards of safety were the same under ROGS; 15% disagreed. In the second survey the proportion of those agreeing increased to 79% (of 28 respondents); the proportion of those that disagreed fell to 11%. The remainder neither agreed nor disagreed, or had no opinion.

The survey findings also indicated that the industry is starting to view safety management as an integrated part of an organisations core business. By way of example, 47% (9 out of 19) of organisations with a ROGS compliant Safety Management System (SMS) in the Year 1 survey indicated that they had, integrated SMS with other systems, compared with only 17% (2 out of 12) of such organisations in the baseline survey. Further to this, four organisations indicated their safety management processes had become more risk based.

Overall, the research is providing a good indication that the objectives of ROGS are being achieved. However, there are some areas that we may need to explore further to see if burdens on industry can be further reduced without affecting safety, for example the annual safety reporting requirements.

The next phase of work sees the research team issuing a third survey and running a repeat of the qualitative exercise undertaken at baseline. The report on this next phase will be available in 2009.

Last updated: 25 November 2008