Independent safety assessments (ISA) ensure safety in rail projects by identifying potential risks and hazards.
Purpose
Assessments may contribute to the success of a product or project by clarifying risks. If the independent safety assessment is done early on in the process risks or defects can be found before a possible production phase. This is why we recommend having the assessment done early.
Rail standards
Independent safety assessments are based on the rail standards: EN 50126, EN 50128 and EN 50129. They were introduces to apply risk based safety management processes in the railway sector to ensure a systematic approach to safety. This meant the application of a complementary process incorporating the rail safety culture applied for more that 150 years.
These standards have been adopted by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as IEC 62278, IEC 62279 and IEC 62425 and thus, they are also applicable outside Europe.
Applying the standards
DNV is a participating member of the CEN/CENELEC group in which EN 50126 is being rewritten in order to contain EN 50128 and EN 50129 and also software parts from EN 50155. This is done in order to meet problems in applying the signalling safety standards for rolling stock and fixed installations and simultaneously make the standards more coherent and consistent, improve the concept of safety management and improve the practical usage of standards.
In order to obtain railway safety certificates and safety approvals, DNV excels in making safety plans and safety strategies that supports the safety argument and;
• are in accordance with standards,
• demonstrate that any hazards and also risks associated with hazards have been identified, mitigated and as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP);
• verifies that safety arguments comply with the required standards, the necessary processes have been implemented.
IEC 61508 s a basic functional safety standard applicable to all kinds of industry and requires an independent assessment to be performed on safety-related systems and DNV provides independent, impartial, high quality and timely safety assessments that helps reduce risks to an acceptable level.
Features
An independent safety assessment may be conducted in accordance with different types of projects. These assessments could be:
• Assessment of safety plan of a product, project or company and performed risk analysis
• Assessment of requirements specifications to obtain completeness and consistency
• Estimating whether or not management systems meet the requirements of a directive
• Verification plans, procedures and standard before initiation of design or production
• Estimating quality and safety of the design or product
• Testing as part of a third part assessment.
Our experience
We have more than 100 years of experience with risk management which includes independent safety assessments. When applied to the rail sector this experience provides us with a focus on values such as trust, confidence, quality, integrity, customers, teamwork and innovation. DNV performs assessments based on both national and European standards and regulations.
Projects
We have an extensive experience from conducting independent safety assessments from all over the world. Here are some examples of these projects:
• Copenhagen Metro
• Øresund Link
• The Danish Great Belt railway tunnel
• Waterloo station
• English, Welsh & Scottish Railway’s Railway Safety Case
• Thameslink 2000
• Ebilock 950
• ATC-software
• The Bothnia Line
• Hong Kong MTRC Project C606
• The Airport Express Train (Oslo Airport)
• Southern Rail Link to Sydney Airport