Safety management systems are an integral aspect of how rail, maritime and aviation safety is managed and improved. This report promotes the development within road agencies of safety management systems to support their responsibilities for safe management maintenance and improvement of the road networks they are responsible for. Appendix A provides a Starter’s Guide which includes key considerations for an organisation with responsibility for a road network for developing and implementing a road safety management system (RSMS). The analysis and discussion of RSMS in the report is based on ISO 39001 Road Traffic Safety Management Systems. The benchmark set by ISO 39001 reinforces the case for a sustained program of work to support the widespread adoption of formal results-focussed safety management systems amongst all agencies responsible for the safe movement of users on their road networks. This would represent the next step for road agencies toward a safe road transport system. The report documents the results of a survey of road agencies distributed to over 2000 people from Australia and New Zealand. Individuals were targeted through direct email, broadcasts through relevant member associations (IPWEA Road Safety Community of Interest, TrafiNZ, AITPM, RCA Forum New Zealand) and through the ARRB road safety and traffic engineering workshop participants and IPWEA ISO 55 000 workshop participants. A total of 41 organisations returned a completed survey, despite efforts to increase response rate and extensions of the closing date. The low response rate alone is informative of the level of awareness of, and commitment to, safety management systems, consistent with the other results of the survey. Notwithstanding the low response rate, it has been possible to evaluate road agencies’ readiness and to make recommendations about the use of safety management systems. The responses to the survey results overall suggest that there is significant substantial variance in awareness of ISO 39001 and safety management systems between Australasian road agencies. The very low level of awareness generally however highlights a lack of safety assurance practices in the provision of road transport services. There is a strong case for raising awareness and promoting the importance of safety management systems across all road agencies. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting