Passenger rail: Amtrak employs new safety program to identify, improve workers' behavior

by Angela Cotey, Associate Editor

In Progressive Railroading's May cover story, Amtrak President and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Boardman noted the railroad's management team is working harder to convince employees they are valued. And to Boardman, there's no better way to value an employee than by ensuring they are working in the safest environment possible.

That's why Amtrak is transitioning to a "behavioral-based safety system rather than a rule-based safety system," Boardman said in a late March interview. During his tenure as Federal Railroad Administrator under the George W. Bush administration, Boardman determined that most railroad working conditions are safe, but workers' actions and decisions aren't always conducive to safety. Instead of disciplining employees for unsafe actions, Amtrak officials want employees to change their behavior.

"At Amtrak, you won't be disciplined for an injury for violating a rule," he says. "That's not to say that discipline will go away, but we want employees to look at how they do things."

That's why Amtrak implemented the Safe-2-Safer injury prevention program, beginning in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast divisions a year ago. The railroad since has rolled the program out incrementally to all departments and divisions.

The program features a "Behavioral Accident Prevention Process," under which trained volunteers meet with and observe their colleagues as they perform their jobs to gauge their behaviors. The observer — which is a fellow worker, not a manager — greets the employee prior to observation, so the worker knows they're there. Observers share all findings with the employee during the evaluation and point out ways the worker might be increasing the risk of injury.

Amtrak is using the information gathered to develop a database that will help shape best practices. The ultimate goal: to help workers identify safe actions, as well as those that put them at risk.