Safety and Wellbeing

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Safety and Wellbeing

Atkins

With a number of tasks still requiring rail workers to be on-track, there were 486 workforce near misses reported in the first year of CP6 alone. Overhead Line Equipment (OLE) survey data is a key requirement for major projects, renewal and maintenance activities across the rail network. Traditionally, collating survey data would be carried out manually by a team walking the track, creating considerable workforce safety risks including accidents, fatigue, impacting mental health as well as being time-consuming and inefficient. Using the New Measurement Train infrastructure, Atkins are collaborating with Network Rail’s North West and Central South route team and Network Rail’s Accelerated Innovation team as part of the Central Rail Systems Alliance (CRSA) and newly established SME Train Rail Infrastructure Solutions to develop the OLE Static Analysis Tool (OLE-StAT) to carry out surveys remotely, creating significant workforce safety benefits: • Mitigates the need for workers to walk the track Reduces the risk of workforce fatigue and relatable incidents including road traffic accidents

Reduces the risk of slips, trips and falls accidents Facilitates planned maintenance reducing the pressure of emergency trackside working

Initial predictions suggest OLE-StAT has the potential to reduce the on-track hours by circa 2000 annually for the Central Rail Systems Alliance and is being developed to support proactive maintenance planning and fault-finding to realise further safety and efficiency benefits across the rail network. OLE-StAT will support NR achieve the target to reduce workforce near misses by 50% by removing the need to walk the track to carry out OLE surveys.

Shortlist

Balfour Beatty

The £51m Angerstein and Hither Green Signalling Renewals project follows the successful delivery of the Key Output 2 (KO2) package of the Thameslink programme. It commenced in September 2017 with Balfour Beatty acting as the Principal Contractor. The scope was to renew the life-expired signalling equipment and associated assets within the Network Rail Kent Route, covering approximately 18km of track and trackside equipment, and 1128m of lineside route works.

Balfour Beatty recognised the challenges of working in this environment through extensive lessons learned on KO2 and developed their safety strategy to enable safe and successful project delivery. By working with the public to ensure their safety by applying the same principles from KO2, employees maintain a safety critical approach regarding their own and the public’s safety to achieve Zero Harm. Their key responsibility was to manage the safety of everyone onsite during delivery and to handback a high quality and safe railway to Network Rail; and recognised a clear opportunity to apply lessons learned from the previous KO2.

The aim is to send everyone home safe every day, and to date, Balfour Beatty has delivered all works at Hither Green and Angerstein without injury at any point. The Angerstein Signalling Renewals project was successfully commissioned in April 2019, on time, to budget and with zero LTIR and AFR.

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Siemens Mobility

As the UK went into full national lockdown on 23 March 2020, Siemens Mobility’s Rolling Stock EHS team developed and implemented a programme to look after the mental health and wellbeing of its 1,200 strong workforce, many of whom were now working from home, some in isolation. In addition to supporting its colleagues in ensuring that the company’s 15 Traincare depots were safe and secure places to work, the Siemens Mobility EHS team also worked quickly to safeguard the mental health and wellbeing of the company’s entire workforce, recognising the extraordinary stresses and strains that people were facing as a result of lockdown.

In developing a suitable wellbeing approach for a diverse workforce, the team worked closely with 7Futures, a specialist consultancy which designs and delivers wellbeing, resilience and mental health programmes. With 7Futures, a series of programmes was developed, tailored to meet the needs of each department and covering everyone across the business. The response to the sessions was universally positive, with teams across the company drawing on invaluable advice and guidance.

Shortlist

Motion Rail

Emma Dymond, Founder of Motion Rail, recognised the power of gaming technology and created the first ever virtual reality (VR) railway to support workforce training using gamification. Around the same time, Network Rail launched the ‘Bossing the Crossing’ campaign, which raises awareness of level crossings. Due to risks involved with taking school groups to a level crossing to educate them of the dangers, Emma drew on the impact of the VR railway to take a virtual railway to the classroom to engage and educate young people.

In collaboration with Network Rail and British Transport Police, Motion Reality was taken to the classroom to educate youngsters about the dangers of the railway. Used in many mainstream and special needs schools, behavioural pupil units and STEM-based events including The Big Bang fairs, Motion Reality has been experienced by more than 300,000 youngsters since 2018. Motion Reality creates user engagement in a way that was not previously possible. It brings the railway to life in a safe, simulated environment, delivering immersive training that engages and educates all, showing that the railway is not a place to play.

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Thales

The thermal camera installation project team swung swiftly into action in challenging conditions to support one of our key partners, Network Rail, by implementing an innovative solution for protecting their critical workers during the Covid-19 crisis. The team successfully trialled and installed cameras in Network Rail’s offices nationwide, which can detect higher than normal temperatures of staff arriving for work, mitigating the risk of COVID-19 spreading in the workplace. This has made a critical contribution to ensuring that Network Rail’s workforce can keep the country’s rail network moving safely during the pandemic.

Any initial teething problems were anticipated and included on the project risk register, and action was taken rapidly to address these. For example; the initial requirement was for cameras to be mounted upon tripods to enable quick installation and flexibility. This made the units prone to being moved, which affected calibration accuracy. Over two thirds of the camera systems were, therefore, rapidly converted to a fixed installation method. The system has proven itself and has played a key role in managing the risk of infection being brought into operationally critical facilities. Staff at the key rail locations have welcomed the technology to the extent that Network Rail is now expanding the deployment of the solution to their wider facilities estate.