Independent Safety Assessment For Railway Systems

Assess the safety level of your railway system.

Business Challenge

Any development or modification of a railway system requires the identification and control of safety risks that may be generated by users and operators.
Therefore the organization in charge of the development or the modification of a railway project (light rail transit, metro, high speed line) has the responsibility to manage safety and must guarantee that project organization and safety activities are compliant with the international standard EN 50126. This requires setting up a safety organization which manages risks during a project’s duration and must demonstrate the safety level achieved.

Solution

To provide safety insurance to a national safety authority, operators or railway manufacturers can ask for an Independent Safety Assessment (ISA). The Independent Safety Assessment mission provides an authoritative independent opinion on whether or not a project / system will meet its safety requirements. In some countries, this mission is required by the authority.
Bureau Veritas assesses global transportation systems as well as subsystems according to international railway standards (EN 50126, EN 50128, EN 50129). Bureau Veritas has strong expertise on system and subsystem assessments in order to guarantee an exhaustive and coherent assessment for:

• Rolling Stock

• Signalling Command & Control

• Energy

• Infrastructure

• Maintenance

• Operations

To guarantee an exhaustive and coherent assessment, the ISA will be on-going throughout every project phase from conception to operation and maintenance. The ISA methodology is based on safety documentation reviews, safety audits and traceability checks.

Why Choose Bureau Veritas?

• Recognition - Bureau Veritas is recognized as a Safety Assessor by the national railway authorities in several countries. Bureau Veritas is recognized worldwide as a symbol of your organization’s ongoing commitment to excellence, sustainability and reliability.

• Experience - Our experience is recognized by the main actors of the railway industry. We are known for:

  - Expertise of control-command / signalling (CBTC, ATP, ATO, ETCS, ERTMS, Interlocking)
  - Experts with strong competencies in global system transport, infrastructure, signalling, rolling stock and energy
  - Over 20 years of experience in safety assessment of railway systems
   

  Additionally, Bureau Veritas is accredited for safety assessments of guided urban transport, conventional and high speed networks.

 

FAQ - FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

• Why do projects needs ISA?

  Independent Safety Assessment (ISA) is a tool for projects to ensure that a new or modified system is specified and implemented correctly and is ensuring its safety function.
  ISA acts as an independent entity for the project and safety engineering team. By leading the assessment activities, ISA attests to correctly managed safety risks and assures safety authorities of its system operations.

• During what part of the project is ISA involved?

  The ISA must begin at the start of the project. The earlier the ISA is involved, the better the safety assessment activities will be planned. At the beginning of the mission, the ISA produces a safety assessment plan which indicates the key milestones of the assessment to ensure completion on time.