Key staff had not been trained in Rail Resource Management.
At the time of the report release, ATSB considers that further actions could be taken provide suitable RRM training for employees.
Sydney trains advised of the following actions:
Assess the status of rail resource management training within the organisation and consider its introduction, ongoing promotion and monitoring within defined safety critical areas of the Sydney Trains operation to enhance decision making, teamwork and communication skills.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau considers that Sydney Trains’ proactive safety action is neither sufficiently robust nor inclusive enough to give assurance that this safety issue will be adequately addressed.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau recommends that Sydney Trains revisits the recommendation from the Final Report of the Special Commission of Inquiry into the Waterfall Rail Accident Volume 2 viz: Customised human factors training for rail safety workers and management/supervisory level staff based on contemporary Crew Resource Management (now RRM) principles and takes action to ensure that RRM training is rolled out to all employees as categorised in the recommendation and especially RMC staff, and that RRM is embedded into Sydney Trains’ training and certification processes. To assist in achieving this, it may be useful to benchmark RRM/CRM training and workplace application against both comparable rail operators and also against other high risk industries (such as aviation) both nationally and internationally.
