1. Beyond the organisation: identifying further contributors to Railway Safety Culture
Bart Accou

2. Safety Culture

3. The development of (Safety) Culture
Institutional context (national culture, economy, politics, regulation, technological development)
Organisational context
Group context
Sensemaking
Individual context
Internalising meanings
Internalising formal structure
Formalising
(structure)
(culture)
Disseminating
(training)
Enculturalising
Enforcing
Interacting
Adapted after Antonsen (2009) & Guldenmund (2015)

4. The development of (Safety) Culture
Patterns of thinking and acting (on safety), largely shared by a group
Developing when people interact and have to accomplish something together
Produced and reproduced through daily interactions of individuals and highly influenced by local as well as external conditions
Should not be seen in isolation from the structural (SMS) nor interactional aspects of an organisation
Could be influenced through its ‘growing conditions’: ‘interacting’, ‘formalising’, ‘disseminating’ and ‘enforcing’

5. The development of (Safety) Culture
Not something that can be agreed based on a norm or standard…
… between management and workers
… between safety authority and regulated company
Not something that can be prescribed or shaped at will by managers, regulating authorities or legislators
Not only about complience to rules and procedures by workers
Not only about the positioning by management of safety against other, competing goals
No palliative measure when no further improvement can be made to safety barriers and procedures
No one (« good ») culture
No « quick fixes »

6. Regulating (Safety) Culture
Can external/instituational factors influence a company’s culture?
Shape the ‘growing conditions’ (‘interacting’, ‘formalising’, ‘disseminating’ and ‘enforcing’) through legislations and regulatory practices
Interacting: from « command and control » towards dialogue and discussion to make sense of safety culture requirements, …
Formalising: shaping framework conditions, setting values and norms, …
Disseminating: intention vs interpretation, …
Enforcing: depth and focus of accident investigations, …

7. Safety Culture Fundamentals
Goal: create set of “Fundamentals” (and attributes explaining their intent) to make in-depth comparisons with day-to-day practices throughout the railway system, and use any differences as a basis for improvements.
Safety must be created continuously
Safety management combines structural and cultural aspects
Cultures develop when people interact and have to accomplish something together
Behaviour is the product of the environment in which it occurs
Making errors is inevitable in all human activities
Safety must facilitate business …

8. Creating sustainable Safety
Safety Management System as the best mean to plan activities and anticipate adverse situations that can be expected
Human flexibility and creativity needed to counter unexpected situations and to keep functioning
Aimed result
Working conditions
Specified
functioning
Understand workplace reality: why do certain types of behaviour and decisions stand out as ‘the right thing to do’?
Every deviation from a prescribed safety process is an opportunity to understand how working conditions influence actual work practice
Continuously measure these « tensions »
Create and maintain those conditions that allow work to succeed

9. The overspeeding example
system designed
communication of speed restrictions (LS/ETCS)
driver training
route knowledge
monitoring of (critical) overspeeding
=> identify influencing conditions
manage influencing conditions

10. The overspeeding example

11. Conclusions
Safety Culture is complex, difficult to measure (objectively) and without the possibility of direct regulation
Legislations and regulatory practices set values and norms and produce framework conditions that influence the growing conditions of safety culture (for good and for bad!)
Joint efforts needed throughout the railway sector to make sense of the concept of Safety Culture – keep it simple, without over-simplification!
New thinking (and new practices) needed, not only from industry but also from regulatory authorities/legislator :
From « command and control » towards dialogue
Asking new questions related to organisational properties
Increased emphasis on the role of top management

12. mail: bart.accou@era.europa.eu