System safety principles: A multidisciplinary engineering perspective

System safety is of particular importance for many industries. Broadly speaking, it refers to the state or objective of striving to sustainably ensure accident prevention through actions on multiple safety levers (technical, organizational, and regulatory). While complementary to risk analysis, it is distinct in one important way: risk analysis is anticipatory rationality examining the possibility of adverse events (or accident scenarios), and the tools of risk analysis support and in some cases quantify various aspects of this analysis effort. The end-objective of risk analysis is to help identify and prioritize risks, inform risk management, and support risk communication. These tools however do not provide design or operational guidelines and principles for eliminating or mitigating risks. Such considerations fall within the purview of system safety.In this work, we propose a set of five safety principles, which are domain-independent, technologically agnostic, and broadly applicable across industries. While there is a proliferation of detailed safety measures (tactics) in specific areas and industries, a synthesis of high-level safety principles or strategies that are independent of any particular instantiation, and from which specific safety measures can be derived or related to, has pedagogical value and fulfills an important role in safety training and education. Such synthesis effort also supports creativity and technical ingenuity in the workforce for deriving specific safety measures, and for implementing these principles and handling specific local or new risks. Our set of safety principles includes: (1) the fail-safe principle; (2) the safety margins principle; (3) the un-graduated response principle (under which we subsume the traditional “inherently safe design” principle); (4) the defense-in-depth principle; and (5) the observability-in-depth principle. We carefully examine each principle and provide examples that illustrate their use and implementation. We relate these principles to the notions of hazard level, accident sequence, and conditional probabilities of further hazard escalation or advancement of an accident sequence. These principles are a useful addition to the intellectual toolkit of engineers, decision-makers, and anyone interested in safety issues, and they provide helpful guidelines during system design and risk management efforts.     

Road safety in France: The hard path toward science-based policy

Very considerable advances have been made in road safety over the long term and especially in the recent years. This improvement was achieved in part due to the effectiveness of French decision-making system, even if it remained very perfectible. An analysis of the road safety management system is carried out in order to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation of road safety in France.The organisation of road safety in France is extremely centralised. The basis of road safety policy at the national level rests on an extensive information system (covering accidents, risk exposure, speed, utilisation of mobile phones) and on analyses of road risk (the risks attributable to alcohol, speed and the use of mobile phones).This statistical information and these risk models are integrated in risk management tools such as monitoring, ranking and policing. Monitoring makes it possible to track the development of road safety, bench-marking to compare the performance of the country’s different departments with each other, and policy making to refine the details of a policy.The development of the governance of road risk is leading managers and decision-makers to perfect data-gathering procedures, standardise and simplify the analytical tools used, and broaden the range of risks covered.     

冬瓜山铜矿安全生产事故统计分析及改进措施

为查找冬瓜山铜矿安全生产事故规律,提出有效的改进措施,预防和减少事故发生,运用三维预防安全管理体系研究成果,对冬瓜山铜矿2003~2013年的安全生产事故,按照严重程度、伤残等级、事故类型等分别进行统计与分析,查找事故发生规律。统计表明,冬瓜山铜矿死亡事故按类别主要以车辆伤害和中毒窒息死亡为多,其次是片帮冒顶;从原因分析看,排在第一的是事故隐患,其次是管理缺陷和违章。针对事故发生的原因,提出了一系列的改进措施,目前这些改进措施已经逐步在冬瓜铜矿得到落实,取得了明显的效果,2012年以来,事故率明显下降,员工安全意识和安全操作技能一定程度得到提高,矿山安全管理环境得到显著改善。     

安全系统的功能安全的发展及实施建议

安全系统的功能安全是基于整体安全生命周期的风险控制与管理,是安全管理学和安全监控技术的新发展。有效的开展功能安全相关工作是进一步落实科技兴安战略和预防为主方针的必然要求,对于减低安全生产事故风险,提高安全监控监管监察效能,缩小安全技术差距具有重要意义。实施功能安全相关工作需要各行业协调行动,从战略高度进行综合分析、宏观设计、统筹安排和合理规划。对功能安全研究与应用、安全生产法规标准、产业发展、科研试验、人才队伍等方面进行了探讨,在加大功能安全相关研发投入,增强科技扶持力度,提高功能安全准入门槛,建设功能安全认证服务机构,发展功能安全产业,培养功能安全专业人才等方面提出了相应的建议措施。     

Benchmarking road safety performances of countries

In order to obtain political interest in road safety problems and to learn from other countries’ ‘good practices’, it is often helpful to compare one’s own safety situation with that of other countries. In a number of projects tools have been developed for such comparisons. These tools range from simple ratings of countries on their safety outcomes, such as the annual number of fatalities per capita or per kilometre driven by (motor)vehicles to more comprehensive comparisons.These comparisons not only show differences in safety between countries, but to a certain extent also explain such differences in terms of their safety background and measures taken. Finally, tools have been defined to support road safety policy makers in developing possible safety measures or actions. Procedures for such complex safety comparisons have been developed and tested in several so-called SUNflower studies.This promising approach can be further developed into standard procedures for safety comparisons between all countries in the European Union, and other countries worldwide. This paper wishes to outline the development of such standards for the benchmarking of road safety and safety trends as well as procedures for quantifying safety performances of countries.Starting point of this conceptual framework is the so-called SUNflower-pyramid in which three types of indicators are distinguished. The first one of these, the road safety performance indicator, is called an outcome indicator and is based on the number of killed and injured road users. The second indicator type indicates the quality of the implementation of road safety policies: the implementation performance indicators. The third type of indicator indicates the quality of response in policy documents to improve road safety (policy performance indicator). The three types of indicators are embedded in a policy context: the structure and culture of a country, which are considered as background variables.This paper sets out to describe the framework for the development of a comprehensive set of indicators to benchmark road safety performances of countries or of sub-national jurisdictions. The paper also discusses the advantages and disadvantages of combining such indicators and if combined, how to aggregate how different indicators in one composite performance index. It is argued to group countries in different classes with more or less comparable countries. Different procedures are used for this grouping. The results are promising and it is recommended to work with classes of countries.     

Measuring and understanding road safety performance at local territorial level

Road safety performance has traditionally been measured at national level, because the national authorities have assumed main responsibility for managing road safety of citizens. With the rise of EU governance, the role of national government has slightly decreased while the role of local authorities has been reinforced in many countries, creating a new playfield for policy actions. Assessing road safety performance at local territorial level may provide new inputs needed to trigger further improvements in road safety, as it brings about a higher accountability of policy makers and brings relevant issues closer to citizens. The measures and methods for such evaluation have now become broadly available and their application may bring a difference in current pace of road safety improvements. An example of the application of full Bayes spatio-temporal model on local road risk data is provided, illustrating the potential of local areal analysis for a better road safety management.     

我国道路交通安全教育培训思考

统计数据显示,我国2007-2009年道路运输事故呈下降趋势。但道路运输事故造成的死亡人数远远高于煤炭事故造成的死亡人数,道路交通安全形势依然很严峻。交通安全形势严峻的主要原因之一就是人为因素,加强对交通参与者的相关教育培训,提高安全意识,规范安全行为,是改善交通安全形势的根本途径。本文系统分析了我国的安全教育环境、交通文化、交通安全法律法规及交通安全教育培训存在问题,提出了改善我国交通安全教育的措施及建议。     

英国城市交通安全管理的调查与思考

从科学管理的角度,总结分析了英国城市道路交通安全管理工作的经验:科学的道路规划网络,清晰的道路语言,完善的道路交通设施,前瞻的事故预防体系,健全的机动车管理制度,高效的停车管理措施,畅通的公路交通动脉,严格的执勤执法。在调查的基础上,结合我国道路交通状况及交通管理部门的工作实际,提出了加强我国城市道路交通科学管理的对策措施,为我国城市特别是中等以上城市治理交通拥堵、提高道路交通利用率提供了借鉴经验。     

建筑安全事故应急措施推理研究

为了加强对建筑安全事故历史案例经验的利用,提高建筑安全事故应急管理的信息化水平,对如何利用智能化技术制定事故应急措施进行研究。将规则推理引入案例推理中,建立了建筑安全事故应急措施推理模型。通过计算综合相似度,在案例库中检索出相似案例的基础上,根据关键属性运用规则推理对相似案例的应急措施进行适用性修改。计算特征属性权重时,利用灰色关联分析法对传统粗糙集方法进行改进,对冗余属性提出了灰色重要度的概念,避免了冗余属性权重为0的情况。选取基坑事故案例对模型进行实例分析,结果表明:建筑安全事故应急措施推理模型具有普遍适用性,可应用于事故应急管理。     

基于GIS的道路交通安全管理系统的研究

针对道路交通安全的现状 ,笔者分析了利用地理信息系统 (GIS)建立道路安全管理系统的必要性及优点 ,探讨了基于GIS的道路安全管理系统的功能、设计思路及其开发的技术路线。利用GIS进行交通安全管理可以增强交通事故分析的直观性、可操作性 ,进行区域安全评价、事故多发点因素分析 ,有利于挖掘交通事故的深层原因 ,从而指导安全管理工作。基于GIS的道路交通安全管理的研究 ,是GIS在领域应用和迅速提高道路交通安全管理现代化水平的一个创新性探索。     

The usage of safety management tools in Swedish municipalities

Although municipalities clearly deal with a broad range of safety issues, little is known about their safety management practices and their usage of safety management tools across sectors. In order to open up the municipal safety management toolbox, this study explores which tools that are being used in Swedish municipalities and by which municipal sector. Our results indicate that tools such as risk inventory, safety rounds and risk analysis are broadly used across most sectors, while usage of other tools is more restricted to certain sectors. Legislative requirements, tool characteristics and actual needs are assumed to influence the usage of tools. Further research in this field is needed for better adaption of safety management tools to municipal needs.     

Risk management and workers’ safety behavior control in coal mine

According to the risk management characteristics and the actual needs of safety production in coal mine, we thoroughly analyze the system of risk management method in coal mine and implement it in Geting Coal Mine. The system manages and controls the potential accident risks, hazard sources and human behavior risks. On this basis, the system of workers’ safety behavior control technology in coal mine is further studied, the “three disobeying” is classified and managed, the “three disobeying” database and safety countermeasures database are established, and the application software - the system of risk management and safety countermeasures optimization in coal mine based on B/S mode is developed and applied, which uses intranet to analyze and supervise the “three disobeying”, publish early-warning information, optimize management and control countermeasures; at the same time, the important prompting messages can be automatically sent to the mobile phones of relevant managers and the person in charge through public communication system in order to improve the real time capability and effectiveness of unsafe behavior control. The technological system and application software implemented in Geting Coal Mine has achieved good results.     

航空安全信息管理的问题与对策

航空安全信息是民航实施安全风险控制和事故预防的基础,对航空安全水平的提高有重要的作用。笔者总结了民航安全信息的基本构成和来源,及其在安全风险识别、管理决策方面的功用;结合中国民航安全管理状况及行业发展趋势,分析了当前中国民航安全信息管理方面存在的主要问题,指出当前民航安全信息存在着数量不足、质量不高、交流共享困难、分析利用不充分等问题,不利于基于数据驱动的安全管理机制的建立和向规章符合性基础上的绩效管理的转变。针对安全信息管理的这些问题,文章建议民航局通过改善安全信息管理政策、建立航空企业安全信息共享平台、建立国家航空安全信息分析中心、开发安全信息分析利用工具等措施来改善安全信息的收集、分析利用和共享,为提高行业安全管理水平服务。     

The trade-off between efficiency and equity in road safety policy

This paper discusses the relationship between efficiency and equity as objectives of road safety policy. The term efficiency refers to the efficient use of all road safety measures. Road safety measures are used efficiently if the priority given to them is based on the criterion that marginal social benefits should be at least equal to marginal social costs. To use road safety measures efficiently therefore means that the priority given to each measure is set strictly according to cost–benefit analyses. Thus, the main question discussed in this paper is whether setting priorities for safety measures strictly according to cost–benefit analyses will produce results that are regarded as equitable and fair. The notions of equity and fairness do not have any universally accepted definitions. In the paper, an attempt is made to apply John Rawls’ difference principle as a criterion of fairness with respect to the distribution of risk. The distribution of risk is examined along several dimensions: between groups of road users, between regions, between social groups, and with respect to the relationship between who pays for a road safety measure and who benefits from it. It is concluded that there is a conflict between efficiency and equity as far as the provision of road safety is concerned. Promoting greater equity requires a departure from efficiency, as defined in economic welfare theory, as the only criterion for setting policy priorities.     

北京市道路交通安全现状分析及控制策略研究

在分析北京市道路交通安全形势以及事故特点的基础上,运用交通冲突理论分析道路交通事故发生的机理,论述道路交通事故发生的过程。并从安全系统工程学角度,使用交通事故显性/隐性致因模型对道路交通事故的致因因素进行分析,强调管理因素的重要性。最后,结合北京市道路交通现状,综合运用3E对策,讨论了改善道路交通安全的控制策略。通过加大违章行为惩罚力度、培养安全文化、建立道路交通事故应急救援体系以及应用智能交通技术等措施,消除道路交通系统中人的不安全行为和物的不安全状态,提高北京市道路交通安全水平。     

The safety effect of open-median management on one-side widened freeways: A driving simulation evaluation

Introduction: Highway expansions and upgrades are often required to increase road network capacity. The widening of one side of a highway, referred to as ‘one-side widening,’ is sometimes implemented in these highway expansion projects. During one-side widening, to save costs, openings can be configured on existing medians (as opposed to removing the existing medians altogether). The median openings allow vehicles in the outer lanes to enter the inner lanes, but they also raise safety concerns and may require alternate open-median management strategies for traffic authorities. There is little existing research that has evaluated the safety effect of these open-median management strategies. Method: To bridge this gap, this study proposes a procedure that evaluates the safety of open-median management strategies for one-side widened highways. The proposed procedure was implemented through driving simulation experiments on a section of Binlai Freeway in Shandong, China. First, the minimum location requirements for median openings were determined by calculating the short length of the weaving segment. Then, simulation tests were carried out to observe driving performance and workload measures. Results: The results indicate that the procedure successfully evaluates the safety effect of open-median management strategies for one-side widened freeways. It was also found that driving performance and workload are sensitive to the opening length and traffic flow. Conclusions: Therefore, median opening placement should be carefully selected in consideration of not only driving performance and workload but also traffic volume predictions. Practical Applications: The findings in this study can guide open-median management strategies for traffic safety one-side widened highways.     

Comparison of self-report and objective measures of driving behavior and road safety: A systematic review

IntroductionThis research systematically reviewed the existing literature in regards to studies which have used both self-report and objective measures of driving behavior. The objective of the current review was to evaluate disparities or similarities between self-report and objective measures of driving behavior.MethodsSearches were undertaken in the following electronic databases, PsycINFO, PubMed, and Scopus, for peer-reviewed full-text articles that (1) focused on road safety, and (2) compared both subjective and objective measures of driving performance or driver safety. A total of 22,728 articles were identified, with 19 articles, comprising 20 studies, included as part of the review.ResultsThe research reported herein suggested that for some behaviors (e.g., driving in stressful situations) there were similarities between self-report and objective measures while for other behaviors (e.g., sleepiness and vigilance states) there were differences between these measurement techniques. In addition, findings from some studies suggested that in-vehicle devices may be a valid measurement tool to assess driving exposure in older drivers.ConclusionsFurther research is needed to examine the correspondence between self-report and objective measures of driving behavior. In particular, there is a need to increase the number of studies which compare “like with like” as it is difficult to draw comparisons when there are variations in measurement tools used.Practical applicationsIncorporating a range of objective and self-report measurements tools in research would help to ensure that the methods used offer the most reliable measures of assessing on-road behaviors.     

我国道路交通事故特征分析与对策研究

针对我国道路交通安全形势日益严峻的现状,在分析我国城市道路交通安全特点的基础上,从交通事故的发生机理出发,分析研究了道路交通事故的宏观规律。从安全系统工程的角度,提出通过制定科学合理的城市道路交通安全管理规划和建立健全城市交通事故紧急救援系统、加强交通参与者的交通安全意识、综合协调道路—交通流—管理者之间的关系,以消除道路交通系统中人的不安全行为和物的不安全状态。明确指出当前乃至今后交通安全的发展方向和趋势,规划长远、决策当前,彻底改变目前交通安全工作的事后处理状态,做到防患于未然。对提高交通安全宏观管理整体水平具有一定的借鉴作用和应用价值。     

机械制造企业安全事故统计分析与对策研究

本文统计分析了4家机械制造企业11年导致人员死亡和重伤的28起安全事故案例，结果表明这些企业安全事故总体发展趋势和企业业务发展有密切的联系，企业安全事故的事故类型、事故原因和事故岗位分布有非常明显的行业特征；最后根据统计分析结果提出了调研企业在预防安全事故方面需要加强的管理对策和措施。     

安全措施在定量风险评价中量化表征的研究

良好安全措施可以降低重大危险源的事故风险,而在一般的定量风险评价中较少考虑到安全措施对风险结果的影响。本文对一些重要安全措施如何体现在定量风险评价的计算结果中进行了研究。将安全措施分为降低事故频率安全技术措施、降低事故后果的安全技术措施、土地利用规划安全措施和安全管理措施四个方面来分析降低风险结果的作用。并以一个液化石油气罐区为实例应用进行对比分析,实例计算结果表明良好的安全措施能有效地降低罐区的个人风险。