International Rail Safety Network

International Rail Safety Network (IRSN)

Chairperson: Doris Horvath, CFL

Members: CFL, CP, INFRABEL, JR-Group, ÖBB, RENFE, RSSB, SNCF, SBB, Trenitalia.
The members of IRSN meet 3 times a year
IRSN is a subgroup of the UIC Safety Platform Steering Group (SPSG) with the goal to foster safety for Railways taking into account the operation process by:

Exchanging safety experiences and backgrounds
Learning from each other
Facilitating good and trusting relations among railway safety experts.

Results 2018

Profound information about safety issues
Intense exchanges about special safety topics with experts of the hosting companies on the following topics:
- Shunting operations
- Measures taken to avoid collisions with buffer stops
- GSM-R
- Radio alert
- Campaign on increasing the awareness of young people to respect rules around railways tracks (Trespassing, level crossing)
- SPAD Action Plan (Investigation, improvement and awareness)
- Project Signal Aspects (Identifying hotspots)
- Methodology for hotspot analysis for trespassing and suicides
- Methodology to define level crossing hotspots
- Safety culture programme (Safety culture – fair culture)

Benchmarking / Surveys for comparing safety practices in different companies on the following topics:
- Survey on railway accidents due to trespassing
- Survey on shunting methods (technical and organisational measures)
- Survey on shunting issues
- Survey on prevention of railway suicides
- Survey on measures taken to avoid collisions with animals on tracks
- Survey about the mission and the organisation of the safety department in different companies