Wednesday, July 22, 2020
ONRSR is reminding operators of the requirement to verbally report Category A incidents immediately – also noting where two operators are involved, both operators must notify ONRSR.
Category A occurrences and other prescribed incidents have the potential to cause serious injury, death or significant property damage and regularly require a quick response by ONRSR. These must, in accordance with the Rail Safety National Law, be verbally reported immediately to ONRSR by calling 1800 430 888.
Reporting immediately allows ONRSR to respond quickly to these occurrences which could include attendance at an incident site or arranging for drug and alcohol testing of rail safety workers involved. ONRSR is also required to notify the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) immediately on receipt of the notification to allow them to assess their response.
In the past 12 months, just over half of the prescribed incidents were notified in the first hour, however almost a quarter of the incidents were not reported to ONRSR until after three hours or longer following the incident, which did not allow ONRSR to respond as they would have liked to in many cases.