This Guideline provides a safety data management resource for the Australasian rail industry. Its purpose is to provide guidance on how to establish a consistent, efficient and effective approach to the collection, analysis and use of safety data in managing risk for Operators and the Rail Industry as a whole, according to good practice. This approach should in turn assist industry-wide analysis of safety risk data and aid in promoting and assisting the development of evidence-based, safety plans for a ‘rail organisation’.

The term ‘rail organisation’ is used throughout this document to include organisations that are, or are not, Rail Transport Operators in Australia or Licence Holders in New Zealand.

This guideline has been developed with an emphasis on rail occurrences including failure mode and the management of incident data.