All RSSB articles
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Rail Business UKEnhanced toolkit aims to reduce SPAD risk
UK: In late spring the Rail Safety & Standards Board is to launch an enhanced version of a toolkit designed to reduce the risk of trains passing a signal at danger. Originally launched in 2019, the Red Aspect Approaches to Signals toolkit uses signal status and ...
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Rail Business UKScenarios developed to help the rail industry plan for climate change
UK: The Rail Safety & Standards Board has developed a standardised set of climate change scenarios to enable the industry to take a consistent approach to risk assessments, asset design and strategic planning. The projections based on different scenarios for greenhouse gas emissions set out how ...
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Rail Business UKRailway time and date standard issued
UK: The Rail Safety & Standards Board has released a standard promoting the wider use of Coordinated Universal Time and the consistent formatting of date and time values across the railway network. This aims to help the industry combine and analyse data, specify new systems and ...
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Rail Business UKColour blindness testing change opens rail jobs to more people
UK: More people with colour blindness will be able to work in safety critical railway roles such as train driving as a result of research undertaken by the Rail Safety & Standards Board at the request of drivers’ union ASLEF. The Ishihara test commonly used to ...
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Rail Business UKTrain driver psychometric assessment standard updated
UK: The Rail Safety & Standards Board has updated the standard related to psychometric assessments in train driver selection, to provide greater clarity on the process and validity of psychometric tests and to increase the number of attempts that can be made at passing from two ...
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Rail Business UKResearch identifies carbon emissions in the railway supply chain
UK: The Rail Safety & Standards Board has undertaken ‘groundbreaking’ research to identify causes of carbon emissions within the complex supply chain, which it says accounts for approximately half of the rail industry’s greenhouse gas emissions. The ‘hotspots’ include materials such as concrete and steel, as ...
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Rail Business UKAI tool for wagon wheelset condition monitoring
UK: A Wheelset Intervention Support Tool which uses predictive AI to identify problems before they lead to damage and disruption is being trialled by the Rail Safety & Standards Board and freight operators. The tool uses data from wheel impact load detectors and other sources to monitor ...
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Rail Business UKRSSB research supports lowering minimum age to be a train driver
UK: Research into the feasibility of reducing the minimum age of train drivers from 20 to 18 undertaken by the Rail Safety & Standards Board has found that existing training, competence and safety systems could be deployed for younger entrants. RSSB found that experience, rather than ...
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Rail Business UKNear-miss reporting guidance aims to increase level crossing safety
UK: The Level Crossing Strategy Group has published guidance to improve the reporting and management of near misses at level crossings. The guidance is the result of collaboration between stakeholders including Network Rail, the Rail Safety & Standards Board, operators LNER and c2c, and train drivers’ ...
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Rail Business UKRoute Availability Calculator launched to simplifying train planning
UK: The Rail Safety & Standards Board has launched a Route Availability Calculator to streamline and simplify the ‘time-consuming and complex’ calculations to assess vehicle compatibility with a route Users input a vehicle’s axle distances and axle loads, and the calculator on the RSSB website then ...
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Rail Business UKRail Health & Safety Strategy for 2024-29 published
UK: The Rail Safety & Standards Board has published its Rail Health & Safety Strategy for 2024-29, saying it aims to create ’the world’s healthiest, safest and affordable railway’. The strategy identifies five key risks: health and wellbeing; operations; occupational health and safety, including fatigue; ...
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Rail Business UKElectrification hopes sidelined in RSSB sustainability strategy
UK: The Rail Safety & Standards Board has launched a Sustainable Rail Blueprint, which it says will support the rail industry in making progress on environmental and social sustainability challenges. According to RSSB, the industry faces a challenge not just to deliver net ...
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Rail Business UKPlatform Train Interface safety tool updated
UK: The Rail Safety & Standards Board has updated a tool for identifying risks and assessing the effectiveness of safety management arrangements around the Platform Train Interface. The first PTI Risk Assessment Tool was launched six years ago. It has now been enhanced with a new ...
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Rail Business UKRSSB develops zero waste metrics for the rail industry
UK: The Rail Safety & Standards Board and Ricardo have completed the first phase of a project to develop metrics to help the rail industry measure circular economy, waste and resource management performance. Core metrics include: station waste generated, reported by treatment method; proportion of ...
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Rail Business UKBattery train deployment report commissioned
UK: The Rail Safety & Standards Board has commissioned consultancy WSP to produce evidence-based recommendations for optimising and standardising the adoption of battery-powered trains. WSP said it would draw on its experience of battery train development in Norway and Sweden, as well as in the UK ...
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OrganisationsCarbon Literacy for Rail training course launched
UK: The Rail Safety & Standards Board has launched a Carbon Literacy for Rail training course, designed to provide anyone working in rail infrastructure, operations or the supply chain with the knowledge to lower their personal and organisational carbon footprint. The first course is scheduled for ...
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Rail Business UKRecommendations to improve on-train air quality
UK: The Department for Transport’s Science Advisory Council has made a number of recommendations in response to a Rail Safety & Standards Board analysis of air quality onboard trains. The council notes that the methodology makes it difficult to compared on-train air quality with outdoor observations, ...
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Rail Business UKResearch to improve prediction of low-adhesion rail conditions
UK: The Rail Safety & Standards Board and University of Sheffield are collaborating to investigate how more detailed information on temperature, humidity and the presence of leaf layers or other contaminants can be used to predict low-adhesion track conditions caused by leaves on the line. The ...
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Rail Business UKStandards revised to lower electrification costs
UK: The Rail Safety & Standards Board has introduced new and revised standards for AC electrification systems and rolling stock which Director of Standards Tom Lee anticipates ‘will help the rail industry save millions of pounds when rolling out new electrification schemes’. The introduction of Standard ...
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Rail Business UKCoupler research paves way for longer freight trains
UK: The length and capacity of freight trains is to be increased as a result of research which has found that existing wagon couplers can safely accommodate higher trailing loads without upgrading or a detailed engineering assessment. The research by the Rail Safety & Standards Board ...