PRO-ACTIVE SAFETY MANAGEMENT - APPLICATION AND EVALUATION WITHIN A RAIL CONTEXT

Pro-active safety management is becoming increasingly popular as a mea ns of preventing workplace accidents and near accidents. This study ap plied the REVIEW method developed by Reason (1993) within an Australia n public rail authority. REVIEW helps identify latent failures that po se a threat to system safety. The purpose of this study was firstly to ; evaluate the value and practicality of REVIEW for use by safety prof essionals; and secondly, to more clearly identify the nature of manage ment deficiencies and fallible decisions specified in Reason's (1992) model. REVIEW was found to be useful, especially from a participative safety management perspective, and for targeting safety areas that nee d current attention. Factor analysis revealed three distinct factors; Policy and Decision Making, Workplace Culture and Operating Conditions . These factors imply that the most effective way to minimise workplac e accidents is to direct remediation strategies at the most global fea tures of the system. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science