Recommendation Date
Recipient Name
NZTA
Text
The Commission recommends that the Chief Executive of the NZ Transport Agency, when conducting safety assessments of each rail licence holder, ensure that they have identified and assessed the risk of fire in a rail vehicle. The Chief Executive should ensure that they have, as far as reasonably practicable, minimised the risk and have measures in place to deal with the outbreak of, and reactions to, fire events.
Reply Text
The Transport Agency confirms it will implement these recommendations. This will occur through our risk based assessment programme. The programme has a 12-18 month cycle to assess all current rail operators, although the Transport Agency will prioritise those that present a greater risk.
The Transport Agency believes that the enduring requirement of fire risk identification and mitigation and assurance is important. We do however note that the priority of rail risks may change over time and it considers that it is essential that the scope and focus of assessments adapts to the current risks and environment identified through the Transport Agency's risk based approach. For that reason it may prove difficult to eventually close these recommendations because of their on-going nature. However, when the Transport Agency has carried out the initial work in respect of all rail operators, we will engage with the Commission to discuss our perspective on how we can continue to gain assurance of the safety outcomes in question.
The Transport Agency believes that the enduring requirement of fire risk identification and mitigation and assurance is important. We do however note that the priority of rail risks may change over time and it considers that it is essential that the scope and focus of assessments adapts to the current risks and environment identified through the Transport Agency's risk based approach. For that reason it may prove difficult to eventually close these recommendations because of their on-going nature. However, when the Transport Agency has carried out the initial work in respect of all rail operators, we will engage with the Commission to discuss our perspective on how we can continue to gain assurance of the safety outcomes in question.
Related Investigation(s)