Safety Hazard Identification – 673.25(b)
The PBT SRM process is a forward-looking effort to identify safety hazards that could potentially result in negative safety outcomes. In the SRM process, a hazard is any real or potential condition that can cause injury, illness, or death; damage to or loss of the facilities, equipment, rolling stock, or infrastructure of a public transportation system; or damage to the environment.
Hazard identification focuses on out-of-the-norm conditions that need special attention or immediate action, new procedures, or training to resolve a condition that is unacceptable and return conditions to an acceptable level. PBT uses a variety of mechanisms for identifying and documenting hazards, namely:
- Through training and reporting procedures, PBT ensures personnel can identify hazards and that each employee clearly understands that the employee has a responsibility to immediately report any safety hazards identified to the employee's supervisors. Continued training helps employees to develop and improve the skills needed to identify hazards.
- Employee hazard training coupled with the ESRP ensures that PBT has full use of information from frontline employees for hazard identification.
- Upon receiving the hazard report, supervisors communicate the identified hazard to the CSO for entry into the risk register for risk assessment, classification, and possible mitigation.
- In carrying out the risk assessment, the CSO uses standard reporting forms (e.g., Driver Pre-Trip & Defect Cards) to mitigate mechanical-based safety hazards that are identified, and other reports are completed on a routine basis by administrative, operations, and maintenance.
- Supervisors are responsible for performing and documenting regular safety assessments, which include reporting and recommending methods to reduce identified hazards.
- PBT uses incident reports and records to determine specific areas of training that need to be covered with employees to ensure safety hazard identification is continually improved, and thus ensure that hazards are identified before an event recurrence.
- Incident reports are also analyzed by the safety team to identify any recurring patterns or themes that would help to identify underlying hazards and root causes of the event that can be mitigated to prevent recurrence.
- If a hazard is such that an employee would be reluctant to report the information due to perceived negative consequences (e.g., disciplinary action), alternative, anonymous reporting mechanisms are available through an anonymous suggestion box, an anonymous online reporting form, or other secure mechanism.
- To increase the safety knowledge of our agency, the CSO, safety team, and subject matter experts are also encouraged to participate in available professional development activities and peer-to-peer exchanges as a source of expertise and information on lessons learned and best practices in hazard identification.
- Other sources for hazard identification include:
- ESRP
- Inspections of personnel's job performance, vehicles, facilities, and other data
- Investigations of safety events
- Safety trend analysis on the data currently collected
- Training and evaluation records
- Internal safety audits
- External sources of hazard information could include:
- FTA and other federal or state authorities
- Reports from the public
- Safety bulletins from manufacturers or industry associations
In addition to identifying the hazard, the hazard identification process also classifies the hazard by type (organizational, technical, or environmental) to assist the CSO in identifying the optimal combination of departmental leadership and subject matter expertise to select in assembling the safety risk assessment team.
The various hazard types can also be categorized by subcategory for each type. For example, organizational hazards can be subcategorized into resourcing, procedural, training, or supervisory hazards. Each of the subcategories implies different types of mitigation strategies and potentially affects overall agency resources through varying costs for implementation. Technical hazards can be subcategorized into operational, maintenance, design, and equipment. Additionally, environmental hazards can be subcategorized into weather and natural, which are always a factor for every operation.
