The Norwegian National Rail Administration (Jernbaneverket) was one of the first transport-related companies to adopt Synergi® in the late 1990s. Carsten Busch, section head for safety in the track division, shares his best-practice experience.

The Norwegian railway system is regarded as one of the safest in Europe. But the other side of the coin is that performance has not been so good, with many delays, technical errors and even accidents in recent months.

Jernbaneverket’s main challenges are the general safety of the infrastructure and protection for track workers. These issues are complicated by the fact that most rail stretches in Norway are single-track, and the mountainous fjord landscape involves quite a few bridges, tunnels and level crossings – not to mention unpredictable weather conditions.

Mr Busch still goes to work by train every day. His substantial experience of safety work from the Dutch and Norwegian railway networks and from the oil and gas sector makes him the right person to do his bit in improving conditions.

“Practical improvement management, including measuring and obtaining results, demands good data, good indicators, correct presentation of the information and actually using it,” he says.

In its early years of using Synergi, registering all relevant facts in the system was the main focus of attention for Jernbaneverket. Gradually, the reporting and segmentation has become more advanced and the organisation has now reached what Mr Busch calls ‘the structure, consistency and quality phase’.

This is when the main objective behind implementing Synergi is realised – the important learning from others’ mistakes and the transfer of experience.

“Thanks to the fact that we’ve structured the data, we can get relevant reports with just a few clicks,” says Mr Busch.

One possible model for the structuring work is what he calls the iceberg principle. The visible part of an iceberg is what seems more important, because these incidents have consequences that attract media attention. Yet most of the issues are actually hidden in the larger part beneath sea level. These misses or near-misses are the causes of such incidents as derailments and occupational injuries, and need to be closely scrutinised. They deserve to be in the limelight together with indicators linked to prevention, processes and corporate culture.

“Of course, we want the factors noticed by most people to improve, but we can’t steer health, safety, environmental and quality management on that basis,” Mr Busch emphasises. “Identifying events which lead to the ‘above-surface’ incidents are what we need to focus on.”

Jernbaneverket has created a follow-up system involving a regular check of whether case-handling and classification have been appropriate. Moreover, it verifies that the action taken makes sense in the long run – that is, if what is done prevents the same thing from happening again.

“This way, we find good solutions and let everyone know about them,” Mr Busch observes.

Jernbaneverket tries to handle every single case in Synergi as it occurs, as well as monitoring trends for various case types. Attention is not devoted solely to numbers, and actual practical action is important. The case does not necessarily have to go through all the stages in the Synergi handling process before the problem is fixed.

With internal and external reports coming from all over Norway, case registering and handling is done mainly by dedicated QHSE personnel, whilst action can be taken by anyone within the organisation.

“We avoid ‘name-dropping’ when registering incidents,” Mr Busch explains.
“This lowers the reporting threshold. But we still need to work on getting more groups of workers to contribute to the database.”

One thing that helps in building a safety culture is highlighting the link between goals, indicators and actions as well as the connection between top-level events, underlying causes and actions in a structured and logical way. As Mr Busch puts it: “Make it simple and readily accessible for everyone – use colours, smileys or speedometers to show the position”.

Besides registration, classification, case handling with action tracking and input for risk analysis, Synergi is used by Jernbaneverket to report directly to the regulator, the Norwegian Railway Inspectorate.

“Since the inspectorate also uses Synergi, it continuously receives fresh information from us,” reports Mr Busch. “The rules say that the National Accident Board should be alerted within 24 hours if a case is classified as ‘very serious’ in Synergi.

“In that event, the risk management system ensures that the accident board will have an e-mail sent to it within four hours of the incident registered in Synergi, in addition to the alert and information they receive by telephone.

“Synergi is extremely flexible and powerful. But no tool works on its own. Building an QHSE culture in a positive way is crucial, with the tool as an integrated component.”

Author: Siv L. Seljevold
Photo: Joakim Bjerk, iStock Photo