Every employee, passenger and citizen has a fundamental right to be safe on any transit system in the United States. According to the American Public Transit Association (APTA), the transit industry transported 10.6 billion passengers in 2015. The question then, is how do transit leaders and safety professionals assure employees, passengers and citizens their fundamental rights to be safe on any transit system? After more than 40 years in the transit industry, I believe that this objective can only be achieved through the successful development and implementation of a sustainable transit safety culture.
Transit leaders and safety professionals must focus on a model of building a strong safety culture within the transit community, uniting all ranks of transit employees and contractors who share a common vision of safe and efficient operations. The goal of a sustainable transit safety culture is based on a theory that a safety culture would, in time, modify human behavior, values and attitudes about safety. If there is a failure in a plan, policy, procedure or communication, with a strong safety culture, safety behavior will align around safety, teamwork, trust, communication, integrity, engagement to yield a safe environment.
Front-line workers are often victims of rail and bus accidents and incidents while performing their workplace duties. There is an inherent risk of harm while performing in certain transit jobs despite the fact that transit agencies have in place multiple safety plans, policies and procedures, rules and operating practices to prevent accidents and incidents. When accidents occur, the direct consequences can be the tragic loss of life, injuries or financial liability. Indirect consequences may result in the loss of employee and public confidence.
In the past, assessments of safety in the transit industry often focused on the content and implementation of plans, procedures and rules designed to govern the safe operation and maintenance of the system. The impact of the work environment on safety is rarely studied and it is a critical factor affecting employee performance. Transit employees often work long hours under demanding schedules and management pressures. Over the past decades, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has made several recommendations to public transit agencies and to the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to develop and improve programs designed to address the safety culture of the industry. However, there is minimal information regarding the development and implementation of a sustainable safety culture in the transit industry to even begin the process.
The safety culture of an organization is a reflection of the perceptions and values that employees share regarding safety in the workplace. This model has a direct, measurable relationship to organizational performance, efficiency and outcome. While the nation’s public transit industry has proclaimed a commendable record of safety for its employees, passengers and citizens, several recent high profile incidents have highlighted the need to strengthen transit safety. Reducing these incidents will require building and sustaining a strong and vibrant transit safety culture. Rapidly evolving societal changes also contribute to a need for a sustainable safety culture. For example, increased use of all transit systems can be expected as a result of research showing that many millennials desire not to own cars. The development of more modern metropolitan communities has also placed serious demand on existing transit systems.
Understanding the Safety Culture Challenges
The first of many challenges faced by transit leaders and safety professionals in developing and implementing a sustainable transit safety culture is recognizing that there is a distinct difference between a safety culture and a safety climate. Transit leaders and safety professionals should not believe that simply because they have safety measures in place such as safety plans, policies, procedures, rules, committee meetings and safety presentations, that they have a safety culture.
It has been suggested theoretically that every system has a safety culture, no matter how good, bad or indifferent that culture might be. The transit industry has not undertaken these requirements. Transit and industry literature also indicates that many leaders and safety professionals believe they have a strong safety culture, when in fact, they have nothing more than a safety climate. A safety culture operates at a much higher level than a safety climate. Zohar (1980) tells us the following:
“The main differences in the definitions are that whereas safety culture is characterized by shared underlying beliefs, values, and attitudes towards work and the organization in general, safety climate appears to be closer to operations, and is characterized by day-to-day perceptions towards the working environment, working practices, organizational policies, and management. Thus, safety culture and safety climate appear to operate on different levels and this reflects the origin of the concepts in the organizational psychology literature of the 1980’s and earlier social and behavioral psychology. As many of the definitions of safety culture and safety climate have common elements, safety climate may reflect the underlying culture of the work-group or organization, although its focus is actually much narrower than safety culture."
A second challenge faced by transit leaders and safety professionals are the “us-vs-them mentality” that is deeply held in transit systems among many front-line workers. Many employees believe deeply that senior management takes the team for granted and ignores them when they have asked for resources to mitigate potential risk or harm. For example, at one transit system, employees were accused of falsifying inspection records, due to workload demands and a lack of manpower. Front-line employees are the foundation of the transit system. It is critical that values, attitudes and behavior are connected to the development and sustainability of any safety culture.
A third challenge in developing and implementing a sustainable transit safety culture is understanding the many safety languages that are spoken in a transit environment. Transit by nature is a system with many sub-systems internal and external. Each sub-system speaks a different language and holds different values, attitudes and behaviors regarding safety. Dr. Beverley Sauer (2011) noted the following example as illustrated in the coal mining industry:
“There are different perspectives on safety within the coal industry. One is the perspective of the workers involved in the coal mining operations onsite. A second perspective is from the office workers at the mine and a third would be the view of mining operations from the observers away from the mine. With each of these perspectives, a distinct language needs to be identified. For example, in the mining operation, there can be field language discussed between workers and frontline supervisors; scientific language from monitors and supervisors engineering language, et al. What is necessary for a culture of safety is a broader vision of the work that ties these multiple parts together. This is what is needed from the leadership of the organization. Everyone needs to be involved regardless of their identity (management, labor, engineering, etc.).”
To Dr. Saur’s point, transit has a safety language at the board level, the leadership level, the management level, supervision level, operations level, maintenance level and the safety level. Therefore, to develop and implement a sustainable transit safety culture, it will require considerable patience, resources and research and will require leaders, managers and safety professionals to bring the many languages to “one sheet of music”.
Understanding the Transit Environment
The transit system is an unforgiving environment. The development and implementation of a sustainable transit safety culture must begin with knowing the transit environment and the many hazards employees encounter. It is strongly recommended that transit leaders and safety professionals understand a transit safety culture must be defined, measured and must have appropriate metrics for its sustainability. We must begin by better understanding the transit environment as a system with many sub-systems and the attitudes, values and behaviors within by conducting the necessary research to assist us in our definition.
Often times, transit employees work in close proximity to railway electrical systems, such as a third rail or an overhead catenary; they may also perform track inspections and repairs during revenue operations. One single incident or failure can result in a fatality or injury to persons in contact with the system including both employees and passengers. Let’s examine some of the hazards transit employees experience daily:
- A false indication from a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) on a light rail or metro system that electric traction power is de-energized when in fact the power is on
- A train passes a work zone at a normal operating speed, when a speed restriction has been implemented due to miscommunication between an operator and operation control center (OCC)
- A train operator is given instructions to make a reverse move (move against the normal flow of train traffic) from a terminal, but the instruction is not properly communicated to track inspectors and the train comes up behind a work crew
- A train failing to properly shunt and OCC can no longer identify the train on the SCADA board or an indication that a train has occupancy at a terminal and the train has long departed (NTSB Reports)
The examples cited are real life incidents that have occurred in the transit environment.
These hazards exist in the lives of front line transit workers and warrant inclusion in discussions on any topic on transit safety culture. Transit systems today are tightly coupled and technologically complex for both rail and bus operations. In the past, only rail operations used highly technological equipment. Currently, buses are rolling off assembly lines equipped with evolving advanced technology that will require greater and more enhanced training and skill requirements for the first line workforce. The safety culture of any transit system must take in consideration the values, attitudes and behaviors that are deeply instilled within transit employees who confront these hazards daily.
Edgar Sheen (2004) cites: “1. Culture is deep and not to be taken lightly; 2. Leaders need to manage culture or the culture will manage the leaders; and 3. Culture is socially learned.” Therefore, this subject must be approached with an understanding that this task is as large as an elephant and must be digested one bite at a time.
Dr. LeNeal Henderson, professor at the University of Baltimore makes the following relevant observations regarding culture that better define the approach:
"Real-life systems are big, messy, complicated things, with problems to match. Genuine solutions require careful thought for their effect on the whole system. Anyone who tries to sell you a simple answer — All we have to do … and everything will be perfect! — is either honestly dumb, or dishonest and probably running for office."
Few things are more painful than trying to do good and finding out that you’ve done a great deal of harm instead. Simple compassion and simple morality are inadequate in a complex world. The bumbling missionary causes tragedy because he follows his heart without using his head to try to understand the whole situation (2007).
Defining a Transit Safety Culture
Transit safety culture must be defined for a successful development and implementation. It must be understood that building a strong and viable safety culture in the transit industry will require the application of a variety of theories and practices, management principles and techniques that will ultimately enhance and sustain organizational effectiveness. Without an understanding of the complexity of transit safety, as a system, consisting of multiple sub-systems, with many moving parts, with risks and hazardous conditions that transit workers face daily, efforts to develop and implement a sustainable transit safety culture would be unfocused and ineffective.
If transit leaders and safety professionals cannot define explicitly their safety culture, or determine how their safety culture is measured, it is very unlikely that they have in place a safety climate. Defining, measuring, developing, promoting and sustaining an effective safety culture depend on a critical first step: understanding what contributes to a transit safety culture. Without an understanding of true safety problems and challenges, values, attitudes and behaviors within their system, implementing a program to strengthen transit safety would be unfocused and ineffective. To achieve a culture of safety in theory, practice and reality, transit leaders and safety professionals must come to the realization that this process requires time, attention, resources dedication and patience.
Daryl Balderson’s article in "Professional Safety, Journal of the American Society of Safety Engineers" (May 2016), titled Safety Defined: A Means to Provide a Safe Work Environment. He states the following: “Safety is often applied in an organization without a clear definition or understanding of what safety is or how to achieve the desired outcome. Without clearly understanding what safety is, achieving meaningful, sustained safety performance is difficult." If transit leaders and safety professionals do not have a clear definition of safety, it is impossible to have an understanding of a safety culture model. Transit leaders and safety professionals must understand that the development and implementation of a sustainable transit safety culture process will require a paradigm shift from static thinking to more dynamic complex interactions for successful outcomes.
This process should begin with research by way of a comprehensive literature review of transit safety as well as other industries with strong safety cultures, both nationally and internationally. The purpose is to understand how both safety and safety culture is defined and implemented successfully in other industries. For example, the following are definitions that have been found, which could serve as a benchmark for the transit industry:
The safety culture of an organization is the product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies and patterns of behavior that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organization’s health and safety management.
Source: NTSB
Safety Culture is the enduring value and priority placed on worker and public safety by everyone in every group at every level of an organization. It refers to the extent to which individuals and groups will commit to personal responsibility for safety, act to preserve, enhance and communicate safety concerns, strive to actively learn, adapt and modify (both individual and organizational) behavior based on lessons learned from mistakes and be rewarded in a manner consistent with these values.
Source: FHWA
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission defines safety culture as the core values and behaviors resulting from a collective commitment by leaders and individuals to emphasize safety over competing goals to ensure protection of people and the environment.
In reviewing these definitions, there are very clear patterns of reference that are found in each definition: value, behavior, attitude, perceptions, priority, commitment, competencies, competing goals, environment, responsibility, preserve, communicate, reward, lesson learned, and active learning.
Measuring Transit Safety Culture
Measuring a transit safety culture will be just as challenging as defining a safety culture. It is crucially important that transit leaders and safety professionals seek appropriate measures to weigh their transit safety culture. Many of the standard measures that are being used today will not be sufficient to measuring a transit safety culture. The metrics must be built around safety culture attributes such as values, attitudes, behaviors, performances and other criteria that would support sustainability. David Osborne and Ted Gaebler’s Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is transforming the Public (2006) states: “What gets measured is what gets done.” While carefully considering defining transit safety culture, simultaneously, transit leaders and safety professionals must think of how safety culture will be measured and what will be the appropriate yardstick to be used. Some transit leaders and safety professional believe that anything can be measured. However, many things are measured with little success. What metrics should be considered in measuring a true safety culture? This has been a question that has challenged many transit leaders and safety professionals for some time.
In an article by Robert M. Williamson (2006) titled What Gets Measured Gets Done: Are you Measuring what really Matters?, he states, Albert Einstein reportedly had a sign on his office wall that read: “Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts.” Transit leaders and safety professionals should use the utmost of caution in determining what gets measured in a safety culture model as well as what yardstick to use. Measuring the wrong thing and using the wrong yardstick will likely yield the wrong result. What should be measured are those things that are critically important to the transit agency, the safe operations of their system, and those contributing measures to a safety culture. Transit leaders and safety professionals should measure those things valued by transit leaders, employees, safety professionals, quality assurance officers and customers, which includes passengers, contractors, vendors and anyone associated with the business strategy or the agency’s mission. To take measuring a transit safety culture to heart, transit stakeholders have to buy into the value of these metrics — to feel useful and provide relevant information that will help to improve the safety of the system. Additionally, inclusion of employees, middle managers and contractors into the process of selecting and defining the performance measures will help overcome the fear and resistance surrounding measuring safety culture.
Dr. Samir A. Ahmed, Ph.D., PE, school of civil engineering, Oklahoma State University, conducted the study Transit Safety Performance Measurement (2010) for the transit industry funded by the FTA. This study outlines a 10-step process for transit leaders and safety professionals to use as a guide to develop safety performance metrics. While this study will assist the transit industry by measuring safety performance, other factors must be considered. Transit leaders and safety professionals must also focus on the intangible measurements found in safety culture such as values, behaviors, perceptions and attitudes toward safety. To this end, FTA should consider similar research for the purpose of assisting transit systems in developing the appropriate metric to measure transit system safety culture
Summary
Establishing a safety culture must continue to be a serious topic of discussion today and well into the future in an effort to reduce accidents and incidents in the transit industry. Although, new safety programs and safety measures have been implemented in many systems across the nation, accidents and incidents will continue to occur unless a paradigm shift is made. Plans, policies and procedures and operating practices alone are not sufficient given the safety demands on transit by society. The development and implementation of a sustainable safety culture is needed now more than ever. Simply identifying system safety practices as a safety culture when it actually a safety climate or to develop a safety culture without the knowledge and understanding of what constitutes a safety culture would result in the same outcomes. Defining and measuring a viable and sustainable transit safety culture mandates the strategic engagement and commitment of leadership, financial and human resources support for employees and customers and reinforcement training to be successful.
Safety culture is not an easy objective for transit leaders and safety professionals to achieve. However, defining, measuring and developing metrics for a transit safety culture would be a most important first steps to take toward developing and implementing a sustainable transit safety culture. This new paradigm would begin to improve safety, reduce risk, change attitudes and behaviors and therefore begin the long journey of the development and implementation of an effective, self-sustaining safety culture.
At the end of the day, when transit leaders, safety professionals, department heads and employees fully embrace and take ownership for safety, the transit system will soon see improved safety and reduced risk for all associated with the agency. Building a strong transit safety culture holds tremendous potential for transit agencies throughout the industry.
References:
- American Public Transit Association (APTA), 2016 information retrieved from website on May 9, 2016.
- Information gleamed from National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Rail Accident Report: NTSB/RAR-10/02 PB2010-916302.
- Zohar, Dov, Dr. (1980) Safety Climate in Reducing Workplace Injury Rates www.iwh.on.ca/at-work/49/safety-climate.
- Sauer, B (2011). Making Connections Conference: Safety Workshop Transcript, Sponsored by the Transportation Center, Silver Spring, MD.
- Information gleaned from National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Accident Investigation Reports: NTSB/RAR-10/02 PB2010-916302, DCA-09-FR-010, and DCA-09-MR-004.
- Schein, E, H. (2004) Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd Edition, San Francisco, CA.
- Henderson, L (2007), Notes on System Theory, Class Reading, Seminar in Organizational Theory & Practices.
- Osborne, D. & Gaebler, T. (1993) Reinventing Government: How The Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming The Public.
- Williamson, R. M. (2006). What Gets Measured Gets Done: Are you measuring what really matters? Article retrieved from the internet on January 16, 2012 at www.swspitcrew.com.
- Ahmed, S. (2010). Transit Safety Performance Measurement Study, School of Civil Engineering, Oklahoma State University.
