There are extensive rules and regulations that govern how working environment and safety are considered for road and railway works, but despite this a number of accidents and more or less serious incidents happens every year. At the regular inspections of road works carried out by the Swedish Transport Administration, STA, there is a fairly large proportion of remarks. The corresponding numbers on the railway side looks even worse. The statistics from the STA inspections in 2013 shows 71 per cent severe discrepancies. To get an idea of how safety and working environment related issues are handled in the procurement, planning and implementation of maintenance activities of roads and railways, a limited number of interviews with relevant actors have been performed. Based on the results from the interviews the following problem areas could be identified: Implementation of new regulations, Control of works, Reporting of incidents and accidents, Ensuring the competence of the workers, but also in other levels/stages in the process. The interviews revealed that there seems to be a lack in the dissemination of information about new regulations to parties involved at every stage. The experience was that procedures for self-monitoring, for reporting of the results from self-monitoring, for taking measures based on identified shortcomings and for feedback were unclear. It was also noticed that the STA nowadays sets skill requirements instead of requirements on specific education/courses, making it more complicated to ensure that the requirements are met. Furthermore, it can be difficult to ensure the competence of temporary staff, mainly at work peaks. To achieve improvements in working environment and safety there is a needed in general for improved routines. Among others procedures are needed to ensure that all involved parties at all levels are aware of current regulations and that these clearly define the roles and responsibilities. The procedures for reporting, follow-up and feedback of accidents and, perhaps above all, incidents could be improved and be used to a higher extent as a tool to improve safety. Another observation is that over the years several studies of techniques and other measures to improve safety for those working with road and railway maintenance have been conducted. Many of these solutions/measures have shown promising results. However, it seems that few of them have been implemented in practice. It would be desirable to explore the reasons for this to be able to accelerate the implementation of new technologies and methods in the future. (Author/publisher)
Abstract