Common approach for supervising the railway safety performance

The key aspect of maintaining and improving safety where possible is to supervise the safety targets at European and national levels. The railway safety directive is aiming to set Common Safety targets (CSTs) that must be reached by the different parts of the rail system and the system as a whole, expressed in risk acceptance criteria. This paper intends to summarise the main results of SAMNET "Safety Management and interoperability thematic network for railway systems" project. SAMNET belongs to the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Commission and addresses the Safety Directives issues. It focuses on the development of Common Safety Targets (CSTs) that are used for supervising the safety performance. The Common Safety Indicators (CSIs) that are used to ensure the measured safety performances (e.g. the effectiveness of Safety Management System) are discussed. The Common Safety Methods (CSMs) to ensure that the targets are correctly assigned and followed at all levels (company, state, Europe) are presented.