Management in the whole railway system

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E
ksploatacja
i
N
iEzawodNosc
– M
aiNtENaNcE
aNd
R
Eliability
V
ol
. 23, N
o
. 3, 2021
476
E-mail addresses:
Eksploatacja i Niezawodnosc – Maintenance and Reliability
Volume 23 (2021), Issue 3
journal homepage: http://www.ein.org.pl
Indexed by:
1. Introduction
The problem of risk assessment in railway transport is presented 
next to risk analysis and risk evaluation as one of the stages of risk 
management in the whole railway system. The level of generality in 
dealing with adverse events in the process of freight transport by rail 
often results in an inadequate and insufficient response to the upset-
ting of the acceptable level of risk by those involved in the process. 
It is common practice to react to the effects of rail incidents rather 
than prevent them from occurring. The groups of entities involved in 
ensuring safety in railway transport include rail operators, infrastruc-
ture managers, users of sidings, rolling stock manufacturers, manu-
facturers of devices and railway traffic control systems, designers and 
entities responsible for maintenance of rolling stock and railway in-
frastructure facilities. 
Risk assessment in the rail transport system can be seen as an ap-
proach aimed at identifying risks at junctions and on railway lines, 
including risks arising from operational processes and the actions of 
other actors in the system whose task is to provide rail freight trans-
port operations. Risk assessment also consists of risk analysis and 
evaluation. 
Particularly relevant in this context is the risk profile R the so-
called risk scenario representing the pattern of the risk distribution 
probability and its consequences written in the form of the following 
pairs [53]:
 
R={(P
1
, S
1
)
, 
(P
2
, S
2
)
, 
…,(P
i
, S
i
),…, (P
n
, S
n
)} 
(1)
where:
R – risk, 
P
i 
– probability of risk due to i-th factor,
S
i  
– effects of risk due to i-th factor,
i
– risk factor number; i = 1,...n.
Risks can come from internal sources resulting from the transport 
system under study and from external sources resulting from causes 
in its environment. A single risk may consequently generate multiple 
negative effects with varying degrees of impact. At the same time, one 
effect of risk implementation may have several causes.
Identification and analysis of adverse events allow for understand-
ing and improving the weaknesses of the organisations operating 
within the railway system where such situations have been diagnosed. 
Positive aspects of studying this type of situations include: 
effective accident prevention by learning from mistakes,
–
minimising the risks involved through proactive management,
–
elimination of repetition of potentially dangerous situations,
–
The aim of this article is to assess the risk of performance of rail freight transport on the 
basis of an analysis of identified risk areas based on statistical data on the causes of acci-
dents that occurred on the lines of railway transport in Poland. A critical review of selected 
scientific studies relating to the risk assessment process for identified areas of the railway 
system has been undertaken. Based on statistical data, the authors analysed the causes of 
accidents on railway lines in 2019 in Poland and determined the probability of occurrence 
of a given cause. In addition, the article calculates the probability of vehicle delays for dif-
ferent emergency situations occurring in the performance of rail freight transport operations. 
This enabled the authors of the article to carry out a risk assessment of freight train delays 
on railway lines.
Highlights
Abstract
Risk assessment for freight train delays on rail-
• 
way lines.
Identification of causes of accidents on railway 
• 
lines and railway sidings in Poland.
Determination of the probability of a cause result-
• 
ing in a railway accident. 
Risk analysis of potential costs of delays resulting 
• 
from accidents in Poland in 2019.
Risk assessment for rail freight transport operations
Lucyna Szaciłło
a
, Marianna Jacyna
a
, Emilian Szczepański
a
, Mariusz Izdebski
a
a 
Warsaw University of Technology Faculty of Transport, ul. Koszykowa 75, Warsaw, Poland
Szaciłło L, Jacyna M, Szczepański E, Izdebski M. Risk assessment for rail freight transport operations. Eksploatacja i Niezawodnosc – 
Maintenance and Reliability 2021; 23 (3): 476–488, http://doi.org/10.17531/ein.2021.3.8.
Article citation info:
risk assessment, railway transport risk, train delay risk level, causes of railway accidents.
Keywords
This is an open access article under the CC BY license 
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
L. Szaciłło - [e-mail], M. Jacyna - [e-mail], E. Szczepański - [e-mail],
M. Izdebski - [e-mail]

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E
ksploatacja
i
N
iEzawodNosc
– M
aiNtENaNcE
aNd
R
Eliability
V
ol
. 23, N
o
. 3, 2021
477
detecting dangerous situations and behaviours, 
–
raising awareness, both among employees and subcontractors,
–
developing a culture of safety,
–
reducing the organisation’s losses.
–
In case of risk, the level of which is acceptable to the evaluating en-
tity, periodical risk analyses are performed. On the other hand, when 
the level of risk is unacceptable, actions necessary to reduce the risk 
are determined. In the last stage, changes are made to the system to 
reduce the level of risk (Fig. 1).