With the adoption of the drive2zero™ Safety Management system (SMS), RATP Dev USA is evolving from a reactive to a proactive mode of managing safety. Let’s take a closer look at this ongoing process which addresses both risk and local compliance effectively.
Every year, RATP Dev USA transports more than 78 million passengers across the United States, through various transportation services such as bus, urban or intercity rail lines (streetcar) and shuttles. Determined to continuously improve transit operations and increase safety culture amongst its subsidiaries, RATP Dev USA launched its drive2zero SMS, driven by Ideagen cloud-based software. “Typically, we have been very reactive in our safety approach, said Mike Anderson, VP of Safety and Security for RATP Dev USA. When an accident or incident occurred, we launched an investigation and put actions in place to ensure that it didn’t happen again. With drive2zero, we are putting in place a proactive management system process to manage events before they become an incident.”
Building a safety culture
The drive2zero framework has four components: Safety Policy, Risk Management, Safety Assurance and Safety Promotion. In addition to directly managing safety, risk and operational performance, drive2zero captures incidents on location, provides real time status incidents and conducts root cause analysis. “drive2zero ensures that controls are always in place to reduce the number of accidents that occur each year, explained Patrick Manley, Corp Director, Safety & Training, RATP Dev USA. It encourages incident reporting and builds a safety culture that completely transforms how risks and incidents are managed. We enable our operators to get to the root of the incident in order to learn from it and to prevent similar incidents in the future.”
Supporting change
To ensure the successful deployment of drive2zero across its agencies in the US, RATP Dev USA is relying on a specific implementation plan. ”Change is never easy, said Patrick Manley. The first step is to gain the trust of our operators’ leadership, so that they understand how drive2zero works and why this is the right approach for managing safety. After conducting a gap analysis between their model and ours, we install the software, configure it, test it and train the team. We stay in close contact with them and coach them to the point where they are capable of managing risk proactively rather than reactively”.
Addressing risks and compliance
Since its launch last December, drive2zero has already proved to be very successful, with a 19 % decrease in vehicle accidents. “We are on the right track to achieve our target of a 30% lower accident rate over a 3-year period, said Mike Anderson. This is an ongoing process that will never stop. Perception in the field is very positive, as employees appreciate working for a company that truly cares about safety and wellbeing.” Besides addressing risks, drive2zero has another key benefit: it satisfies the demands of the Public Transportation Agency Safety Plan (PTASP) that require public transportation systems operators to develop safety plans by June 2020.