The Twinning II project’s objective is to “enhance the cooperation between railway stakeholders for improving safety culture”, and within this framework, the European project team carried out its second peer review from 20 to 24 February, thanks to the CFL Group’s participation in becoming one of the first three EU stakeholders to organise a peer review.
The peer review is a methodological approach and tool that helps members to benchmark themselves through a thorough and objective review of activities, by an independent team from outside their organisation (in this case, the Twinning II team). The final results are delivered in a report that highlights strengths and where safety culture can be improved.
The peer review at CFL was carried out using 3 types of sessions:
- Focus groups (with 3 to 4 CFL staff members) answering questions and giving feedback
- Interviews (with one person)
- On-site observation to analyse the workplace experience within certain activities
For the CFL peer review, the team met with staff from CFL Cargo and CFL Passengers.
One of this peer review exercise’s strengths is that it encourages and supports the sharing of expertise between consortium members and raises awareness levels and increases the commitment to safety within host and visiting organisations. Through peer reviews, members learn and share general knowledge on safety culture and improve their own performance.
As project coordinator, UIC would like to thank CFL Comex for making this peer review possible, and especially Bruno Castellazzi and Doris Horvat from CFL Cargo and the CFL Group, for organising the review, and to Ludwig Koschutnig from ÖBB for leading the peer review team.
UIC and the Twinning II project team would also like to thank all of the CFL operations and management staff, for their time and willingness to share views on how safety culture should be improved.
A third peer review will take place at Infrabel in Brussels and Gant, at the end of March 2023, so we look forward to seeing you there!
The final event of the project will be for the consortium to draw up a communication guide summarising the peer review methodology, and detailing positive practices within safety culture for operators to use, in order to implement this exercise within a company’s SMS framework. Additionally, the peer reviews will soon form part of the core and continuous activities of the UIC Safety Department.
UIC would also like to wholeheartedly thank the Twinning II team for its outstanding work:
IRISH RAIL, ÖBB (leader of this peer review), LISEA, ERA (supporting the peer review team), INFRABEL,and DB CARGO France.
The project leading to this application has received funding from the European Commission number MOVE/C4/SUB/2020-62/SI2.862249
