Current rail safety practices are heavily influenced by traditional engineering fail-safe and occupational health and safety approaches, with expenditure decisions guided by the principle that actions should be implemented unless their cost is grossly disproportionate to the benefit they deliver. This paper addresses these approaches, and suggests that the effective difference between the decision criteria of gross disproportionality and benefit-cost ratio of one or more is not as severe as might be immediately apparent. However, the expenditure criterion of benefit-cost ratio of one or more is preferred because of imprecision in the definition of gross disproportionality. The paper also notes that some literature on transport safety argues that higher levels of expenditure on rail safety might be warranted by specific characteristics of railways. Empirical studies have found little evidence to support the higher unit valuation of improved safety outcomes for railways compared with road transport. Finally, the paper discusses three implications of excessively high rail safety standards. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E213716.
Abstract