National Academies Press: OpenBook

Improving Safety Culture in Public Transportation (2015)

Chapter: Chapter 4 - Definition and Key Components of Safety Culture for Public Transportation

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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 4 - Definition and Key Components of Safety Culture for Public Transportation." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. Improving Safety Culture in Public Transportation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22217.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 4 - Definition and Key Components of Safety Culture for Public Transportation." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. Improving Safety Culture in Public Transportation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22217.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 4 - Definition and Key Components of Safety Culture for Public Transportation." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. Improving Safety Culture in Public Transportation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22217.
×
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Page 42
Suggested Citation:"Chapter 4 - Definition and Key Components of Safety Culture for Public Transportation." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. Improving Safety Culture in Public Transportation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22217.
×
Page 42
Page 43
Suggested Citation:"Chapter 4 - Definition and Key Components of Safety Culture for Public Transportation." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. Improving Safety Culture in Public Transportation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22217.
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Page 43

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39 Definition and Key Components of Safety Culture for Public Transportation Introduction Culture is a set of learned behaviors, attitudes, customs, and beliefs; it is reinforced by ritual and endures from generation to generation. However, defining safety culture is not and never has been an easy task, as our literature review has revealed. To arrive at a definition of safety culture for the public trans- portation industry, the research team identified and prio ritized key components from the literature, examined the mini–case studies, surveyed and interviewed industry representatives, and established an expert safety culture panel (ESCP) to assist in the task. The research team also considered the work of other industries and federal agencies. Definitions from the Literature Of the many definitions of safety culture in the literature, the research team considers the following seven definitions to be the most compelling. These definitions also have consider- able support in many industries and federal agencies: • INSAG: “That assembly of characteristics and attitudes in organizations and individuals which establishes that, as an overriding priority, nuclear plant safety issues receive the attention warranted by their significance” (International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group, 2002). • Uttal: “Shared values (what is important) and beliefs (how things work) that interact with a company’s people, organiza- tional structures, and control systems to produce behavioral norms (the way we do things around here)” (Uttal, 1983). • Eiff: “Shared values, norms, behaviors about minimizing risk, respect toward safety, and technical competence shared by individuals and groups of individuals who place a high premium on safety as an organizational priority” (Eiff, 1999). • UK Health and Safety Commission: “The product of individual and group values, attitudes, competencies, and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and the style and efficiency of, an organization’s health and safety programs. Organizations with a positive safety culture are characterized by communications founded on mutual trust, by shared perceptions of the importance of safety, and by confidence in the efficacy measures” (Health and Safety Commission, 1993). • The DOE says a safety culture is “an organization’s values and behaviors, modeled by its leaders and internalized by its members. These values and behaviors serve to make safe performance of work the overriding priority to pro- tect the public, workers, and the environment” (EFCOG/ DOE, 2009). • TRACS defines safety culture as “the product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies, and patterns of behavior that can determine the commitment to and the style and proficiency of an organization’s safety management system” (Transit Rail Advisory Committee for Safety, 2011). • The FRA defines organizational culture as “shared values, norms, and perceptions that are expressed as common expectations, assumptions, and views of rationality within an organization and play a critical role in safety.” It notes that organizations with a positive safety culture are char- acterized by “communications founded on mutual trust, by shared perceptions of the importance of safety, and by confidence in the efficacy of preventive measures” (U.S. Federal Register, 2012). While there is some commonality, these definitions tend to emphasize different aspects and components of safety culture; there is no convergence toward a universal definition. Expert Safety Culture Panel In order to assist in understanding safety culture, the research team convened the ESCP. The research team identi- fied likely candidates and submitted their names to the project C H A P T E R 4

40 panel for review. All of the nominees were from organizations identified as having positive safety cultures. The research team thereby chose a group of individuals with experience working in a positive safety culture that was available to vet key findings and recommendations. Members who accepted their nomi- nations represented the organizations and held the positions shown in Table 6. In a conference-call discussion, the ESCP considered safety culture definitions and components drawn from the literature review conducted by the research team. Major points made by members of the ESCP are included in the following comments: • “In most important respects, as Reason says, a safety cul- ture is an informed culture as well as a reporting culture, a flexible culture, a learning culture, and a just culture.” • Another participant pointed out that Thadden and Gibbons believe that “safety culture is defined as an enduring value in prioritization of worker and public safety by each member of each group and every level of an organization.” • “In addition to the textbook definition, there needs to be a layman’s definition; one that I have seen is ‘safety culture is what employees do when no one is looking.’” • “I firmly believe that ‘what you do is much more important than what you say.’” • “It is absolutely essential to enforce adopted rules and per- haps equally important to eliminate rules if they are not going to be enforced. In my view, the latter actually breeds unsafe practices.” • “The demonstrated belief that all tasks can be completed free of harm and/or incident. An entire organization truly devoted to the health and well-being of each individual on and off the job through the dedication of resources. Behaviors and mind-sets which convey the utmost value of caring and focusing on protecting oneself and others.” • “Safety culture means 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.” • “Safety is our first priority, and the System Safety Program Plan is the vehicle by which this priority is incorporated into all aspects of the operation and the performance of every employee.” • “. . . each employee is responsible and accountable for acci- dent prevention, for maintaining safe standards, and for creating an atmosphere of cooperation and commitment that continues to place the highest attention on safety.” • “Beyond the definition, if there is something to be built (it takes 4 or 5 years to develop a safety culture), there has to be a foundation level at which everyone begins. As you go along, the training, orientation, identification of partici- pants in culture development—that is the most successful Table 6. Expert safety culture panel. Organization Title Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) Executive Director, Human Resources and Organizational Development OCTA Director, Health, Safety, and Environmental Compliance LA Metro Corporate Safety Officer SamTrans GM/CEO SamTrans Deputy CEO, Finance and Administration ATU Local 1574 (SamTrans) Local President New Jersey Transit Deputy General Manager, Safety and Training United Transportation Union (UTU) Local 60 (NJ Transit) General Chairman King County Metro Safety Supervisor ATU Local 587 (King County) Local President Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District Safety and Training Director AmQuip Crane/Rental, LLC VP, Risk Management CSX Transportation VP, Safety CSX Transportation General Manager of Safety

41 way to achieve it. . . . you have to train everyone from the bottom up. One way of achieving a positive safety cul- ture is to empower the people involved to agree to it, to buy into it, and to share their values with the upper-level people.” • “If we are going to establish safety culture in any organiza- tion, leadership by personal example starting at the top has to occur. That has to be the catalyst that gets everything else going. From that, the training, tactics, and procedures can evolve. If you don’t have buy-in from the get-go, the project is doomed.” • “There will be some resistance and a paradigm shift from jump-street; so there has to be an epiphany from those resisting or someone has to be made an example or be removed because they are not fostering the principles that you are trying to establish.” Some common themes received strong, empathic, and recurring expression, reflecting both transit agency experi- ence and industry expertise: • Safety culture is the result of embedded values and atti- tudes that produce behavior patterns; it is what it is and not just what anyone says it is. • Keeping the audience in mind, communicating the mes- sage, and choosing appropriate language are important: KISS (keep it simple, stupid). • Getting to a positive safety culture requires strong, com- mitted, and decisive leadership. • Employee buy-in, ownership, and empowerment from the outset are critical. • The work never ends; safety culture “is a journey, not a destination.” Components of Safety Culture in Transit This report has examined the literature to identify compo- nents of safety culture and has shown the difficulty of arriving at a widely accepted definition of safety culture suitable for public transportation. As previously detailed in the review, the literature also offers many different sets of components of safety culture. Cross-Referencing the Literature Review with the Stakeholder Survey To identify the components of safety culture that are most often cited, Table 7 shows safety culture components that were present in the literature review and selected in the tran- sit industry survey of executives and safety professionals. As previously established and supported by all aspects of the team’s research into safety culture in the literature, the public transportation industry, and companies outside pub- lic transportation, the components of safety culture in public transportation can be reduced to: • Strong leadership, management, and organizational com- mitment to safety; • Employee/union shared ownership and participation/ empowerment; • Effective safety communication; • Proactive use of safety data, key indicators, and bench- marking; • Organizational learning; • Consistent safety reporting and investigation for prevention; • Employee recognition and rewards; and • High level of organizational trust. Defining Safety Culture Alternatives Sharing from his direct experience at New York City Transit (NYCT) dealing with problems associated with safety culture, research team member Roger Toussaint states: Positive safety culture entails structured and verifiable employee buy-in and shared ownership in the safety process. This is very dif- ferent from just being invited to a management meeting or even just being asked to participate in a union leadership initiative. Safety must be integral to the core mission of the organization and not just a cliché. The level and degree of CEO and manage- ment hands-on, boots-on-the-ground, leadership-by-example, and commitment throughout the organization must be measur- able. Safety culture must be built in to all facets of the operation that impact safety and overall employee morale. A safety system with positive culture runs on data-driven evaluations and deci- sion making for every situation, with appropriate metrics and measurement tools, early warning systems, fail-safe measures, and redundant systems. The research team drafted several alternative definitions for possible application to public transportation: • Safety culture is the sum of all attitudes, values, and behav- iors related to safety, which are common or shared within a public transportation organization and jointly determine how work is performed and how the agency operates. • Safety culture strives to establish and maintain enduring root values and attitudes, with policies, standards, proce- dures, and behavior arising thereof that bind and commit all members and facets of the operation to the transference of the priority of safety to all current and future participants and to all elements that affect the operation.

42 • Safety culture is a sustained set of attitudes and behaviors that combine to deliver safe, efficient transportation ser- vices to the public. • Safety culture is a collaboration among management, super- vision, and workers to create and maintain a sustained and unwavering attitude and set of behaviors designed to deliver consistently safe, efficient transportation services to our agency’s customers. • Another alternative can be derived from the Uttal defini- tion, which is: “Safety culture is shared values (‘what is important’) and beliefs (‘how things work’) that interact with a company’s people, organizational structures, and control systems to produce behavioral norms (‘the way we do things around here’)” (Uttal, 1983). The strength of the Uttal definition is that it captures and portrays the dynamic interaction among values, beliefs, employees, organizational structures, and control systems that com- bine to produce behavioral norms. Other definitions tend to be one-dimensional in comparison. Modifying the Uttal definition to tailor it more specifically to public Table 7. Frequency of inclusion of various safety culture components. Component of Safety Culture Zo ha r IC AO H ud so n Fl em in g IN EE L Ta sk 2 S ur ve y Su rv ey R an k Learning culture/emphasis on education and training x x x x x x 2 Informed culture/good management–worker communications x x x x x/x 3/8 Management commitment x x x x x 1 Organizational commitment/adequate resources x x x 4 Staff understands hazards/shared perceptions of hazards/competence in handling hazards x x x 6 Viable reporting system/visible action taken x x/x 13/7 Employee involvement/participation in safety matters x x x 9 Flexible culture/senior management open to opposing views and encourages feedback x x Just culture/assigning blame not first priority x x 11 Productivity versus safety—employees can stop work/interrupt schedules for safety x x 5 Trust x x 12 Industrial relations/positive union involvement x x 14 Job satisfaction x x Accountability/reward systems x x 15 Safety rules are realistic and workable x Stable leadership transitions x 10 Environmental control and good housekeeping x Stable workforce/older workers x Distinctive ways of promoting safety x Performance management x Coworker support x Notes: Double entries, such as “x/x” or “3/8,” signify the presence of two elements being separately cited within a single component—for example, “viable reporting system” and “visible action taken.” ICAO = International Civil Aviation Organization; INEEL = Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.

43 transportation would produce: “Safety culture is shared values (what is important to all public transportation employees who are delivering safe, efficient revenue ser- vice) and shared beliefs and attitudes (how the transpor- tation system works and what individual employee roles should be) that interact with employees, safety policies, procedures, and rules to produce behavioral norms (the way we do our jobs, whether observed or not).” The research team provided a preliminary draft of this chapter to the ESCP for feedback and discussion. A number of suggestions and clarifications were provided. The ESCP and research team members agreed that a balance must be struck between complexity and simplicity in any definition adopted. Complex definitions may be difficult to grasp and remember. The simplest definitions, however, fail to portray the essence of safety culture and its distinguishing character- istics. Safety culture is not a simple phenomenon. The challenges that those in the industry face in moving toward a more positive safety culture must be made clear, and employees must be motivated to make the necessary changes. While these efforts are grounded in the literature and in indus- try experience, getting to a generally accepted industry-wide definition will require marketing and art. In that regard, this definition needs an imperative. The research team suggests: • Safety is doing the right thing, even when no one is looking. • Safety is the core value we all share. • Safety takes priority over other competing goals. • Safety is how we work and how we do everything. Conclusions There are many possible definitions of safety culture for the public transportation industry. However, the research team believes a modified Uttal definition is the best alternative: Safety culture is shared values (what is important to all public transportation employees who are delivering safe, efficient revenue service) and shared beliefs and attitudes (how the transportation system works and what individual employee roles should be) that interact with employees, safety policies, procedures, and rules to produce behavioral norms (the way we do our jobs, whether we are being observed or not). In conclusion, the Uttal definition is one of two that Rea- son has endorsed (Reason, 1997). Also, there are strong simi- larities between our proposed definition and those adopted by the U.S. DOE, the FRA, and TRACS.

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TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 174: Improving Safety Culture in Public Transportation presents research on the definition of safety culture within public transportation, presents methods and tools for assessing safety culture, and provides strategies and guidelines that public transportation agencies may apply to initiate and build a program for improving safety culture.

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