The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) issued a new final rule which requires passenger railway companies to proactively identify potential safety hazards across their operations and work to reduce and mitigate them. The rule will help prevent potential safety problems from escalating and resulting in incidents, injuries, or deaths.
The new rule, the System Safety Program (SSP), requires rail passenger operators to implement, among other items, a defined and measurable safety culture; identify potential safety hazards in their operations and work to reduce or eliminate those hazards; and to document and demonstrate how they will achieve compliance with FRA regulations.
The next-generation, goal-oriented safety regulation aims to build on the foundational framework FRA currently has in place for safety rules by directing industry to pivot from a reactive to a more proactive approach at achieving safety. Because of the comprehensive requirements the SSP entails, FRA will provide technical assistance on ways to set, achieve, and measure safety culture and other important elements of the regulation.
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