EUMedRail seminar on Human and Organisational Factors
Published: 18 February 2021
Updated: 12 October 2022
The EUMedRail project promotes the integration of Human and Organisational Factors in the railway system of Euromed partners.
News
The EU Agency for Railways organised a seminar on 17 February on Human and Organisational Factors (HOF) in the scope of the EUMedRail project.
More than 100 participants from the Euromed and IPA projects as well as other international stakeholders took part in this seminar, which aimed to increase understanding on HOF methods and their integration to improve SMS and risk and change management.
Ms Yeo, from the EU Agency for Railways, made a brief introduction on the framework of the Safety Management System to manage risks, roles and responsibilities. She then reminded the specific requirements to RU (railway undertakings) and IM (infrastructure managers), which need respectively a safety certificate and a safety authorisation and are assessed by the NSAs or the EU Agency for Railways. Ms Yeo stressed that the directive on railway safety highlights the impact of human factors and human actions that could be a direct cause of an accident or incident should be carefully analysed. Her intervention concluded with some tools developed to integrate the HOF in the SMS, including the Management Maturity Model and the Safety Management system requirements for safety certification or safety authorisation.
Mr Penners, HOF expert from Infrabel, shared with participants the processes and methods to integrate HOF in the daily operation.
Ms Lagaize-Davoine, from the EU Agency for Railways, introduced the integration of HOF in risk assessment and change management stressing the responsibility of both IM and RU to ensure safe operations in each part of the system by implementing and monitoring risk control measures. She then presented the common safety methods on SMS requirements and the HOF requirements on risk assessment. Organisations shall identify and analyse operational, organisational and technical risks including those from human and organisational factors, shall fulfil the human factors requirements in all phases of the life cycle and demonstrate a systematic approach to integrate human and organisational factors within the safety management system. She provided to the audiences some examples of safety measures and afterwards proposed an exercise that encouraged discussions from the audience.
For further information of this event, please contact: EUMedRail@ERA.EUROPA.EU