Author(s)

E. M. El Koursi & L. Tordai

Abstract

The key aspect of maintaining and improving safety where possible is to supervise the safety targets at European and national levels. The railway safety directive is aiming to set Common Safety targets (CSTs) that must be reached by the different parts of the rail system and the system as a whole, expressed in risk acceptance criteria. This paper intends to summarise the main results of SAMNET \“Safety Management and interoperability thematic network for railway systems” project. SAMNET belongs to the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Commission and addresses the Safety Directives issues. It focuses on the development of Common Safety Targets (CSTs) that are used for supervising the safety performance. The Common Safety Indicators (CSIs) that are used to ensure the measured safety performances (e.g. the effectiveness of Safety Management System) are discussed. The Common Safety Methods (CSMs) to ensure that the targets are correctly assigned and followed at all levels (company, state, Europe) are presented. 1 Introduction The European Community regards its railways as an economic, efficient, environmentally friendly and very safe mode of transport. The railways need a liberalised rail transport market similar to those in the civil aviation and maritime sectors. The process of creating an internal European rail market has just started. The first railway package of European Directives creates a common framework for access to railway infrastructure and for allocation of railway infrastructure capacity. The European Directives on interoperability concern the global approach to all rail transport aspects, the second railway package, published in

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