Target Safety Research Articles

Safety and security target levels: Opportunities and challenges for risk management and risk communication

This paper reviews a selection of target levels for safety and security in order to identify their common properties. It is accompanied by a brief investigation of several key terms used in risk management. Risk management is used as an umbrella term for the various research areas dealing with multiple hazards, impacts types and measures for dealing with them. The paper draws upon examples and experience from the wider field of disaster risk research and civil protection. A concept which identifies the common properties and content of risk management goals in general is then devised. Normative implications and challenges in applying risk management goals and the use of terminology are discussed. Finally, two main future research areas are briefly outlined: the role and responsibility of the researcher or observer, and the ways of making use of risk management goals in risk communication. This paper provides fundamental information on examples of risk management goals, common properties and risk communication as compiled for and used by certain national authorities in civil protection in Germany. However, its findings may also be useful for fellow researchers within the disaster risk, climate change, vulnerability and resilience community, and for practitioners in the field of risk, and crisis or emergency management. The future applications of these findings will be useful, especially when developing risk management goals for specific user groups and different levels of analysis.

Risk based microbiological criteria for Campylobacter in broiler meat in the European Union

Quantitative microbiological risk assessment (QMRA) allows evaluating the public health impact of food safety targets to support the control of foodborne pathogens. We estimate the risk reduction of setting microbiological criteria (MCs) for Campylobacter on broiler meat in 25 European countries, applying quantitative data from the 2008 EU baseline survey. We demonstrate that risk based MCs can be derived without explicit consideration of Food Safety Objectives or Performance Objectives. Published QMRA models for the consumer phase and dose response provide a relation between Campylobacter concentration on skin samples and the attending probability of illness for the consumer. Probabilistic modelling is used to evaluate a set of potential MCs. We present the percentage of batches not complying with the potential criteria, in relation to the risk reduction attending totally efficient treatment of these batches. We find different risk estimates and different impacts of MCs in different countries, which offers a practical and flexible tool for risk managers to select the most appropriate MC by weighing the costs (i.e. non-compliant batches) and the benefits (i.e. reduction in public health risk). Our analyses show that the estimated percentage of batches not complying with the MC is better correlated with the risk estimate than surrogate risk measures like the flock prevalence or the arithmetic mean concentration of bacteria on carcasses, and would therefore be a good measure for the risk of Campylobacter on broiler meat in a particular country. Two uncertain parameters in the model are the ratio of within- and between-flock variances in concentrations, and the transition factor of skin sample concentrations to concentrations on the meat. Sensitivity analyses show that these parameters have a considerable effect on our results, but the impact of their uncertainty is small compared to that of the parameters defining the Microbiological Criterion and the concentration on the meat.

A naturalistic study of commuter cyclists in the greater Stockholm area

Few naturalistic studies have been carried out with commuter cyclists to discover the types of problems they encounter on a daily basis. The study presented here has been commissioned by the City of Stockholm municipality and focuses specifically on commuter cyclists in the Greater Stockholm area. The aim of the study was to describe and pinpoint accessibility and safety problems, but also to generate an accessible geographical interface that could serve as a traffic planning tool for cycle network improvement. Statistical surveys in the Stockholm area have shown a rapid growth in the number of cyclists as well as an increase in problems associated with an overburdened cycle infrastructure. Given the heightened emphasis on transport system sustainability, the City of Stockholm is faced with the challenging task of trying to maintain and encourage the upward trend in commuter cycling through a process that involves problem identification, classification, prioritisation and resolution. An innovative methodology involving the use of GPS logging devices and small video cameras was developed and supported with analysis software designed specifically for the purposes of this study. Experienced commuter cyclists were recruited to cycle 17 different major cycle routes to and from the suburbs and inner city area during morning and afternoon peak traffic hours during the main cycle season. Over 500 safety and accessibility/mobility problems were identified and recorded from the data collected from 16 commuter cyclists. The method and representation of data proved successful for strategic traffic planning work at City of Stockholm and has since provided invaluable input for and the development of a new cycle plan for Greater Stockholm. Indirectly, the results of this work have also contributed to longer term safety and environmental targets.

Determining quantitative road safety targets by applying statistical prediction techniques and a multi-stage adjustment procedure

Due to substantial progress made in road safety in the last ten years, the European Union (EU) renewed the ambitious agreement of halving the number of persons killed on the roads within the next decade. In this paper we develop a method that aims at finding an optimal target for each nation, in terms of being as achievable as possible, and with the cumulative EU target being reached. Targets as an important component in road safety policy are given as reduction rate or as absolute number of road traffic deaths. Determination of these quantitative road safety targets (QRST) is done by a top-down approach, formalized in a multi-stage adjustment procedure. Different QRST are derived under consideration of recent research. The paper presents a method to break the national target further down to regional targets in case of the German Federal States. Generalized linear models are fitted to data in the period 1991–2010. Our model selection procedure chooses various models for the EU and solely log-linear models for the German Federal States. If the proposed targets for the EU Member States are attained, the sum of fatalities should not exceed the total value of 15,465 per year by 2020. Both, the mean level and the range of mortality rates within the EU could be lowered from 28–113 in 2010 to 17–41 per million inhabitants in 2020. This study provides an alternative to the determination of safety targets by political commitments only, taking the history of road fatalities trends and population into consideration.

Practical child safety education in England: A national survey of the Child Safety Education Coalition

Objective: To examine the provision of practical safety education by Child Safety Education Coalition (CSEC) organizations in England. Design: A postal survey. Setting: Providers of child practical safety education who were also part of CSEC. Methods: In February 2010 all CSEC organizations were sent a self-completion postal questionnaire which aimed to elicit details of safety education activities, priorities, target groups and information about evaluation. Frequencies of responses were calculated. Results: Responses were received from 60 organizations representing a response rate of 65%. They represented private, public and charitable organizations, and provided safety education for children aged 3 to 17 years. Respondents undertook a varied range of activities including talks, theatre work, utility distribution, experiential learning, hospital visits, and sports and leisure activities. The majority ( n = 43, 72%) ran special events to teach children about safety and most often this occurred at least once a month ( n = 28, 47%). Respondents provided education addressing the main causes of injury and mortality; road traffic injuries was the topic most often addressed ( n = 42, 70%). Twenty per cent of respondents ( n = 12) stated that they did not evaluate their activities and only one-third ( n = 19, 32%) stated that they produced written reports. Conclusion: Child safety education was delivered using a variety of techniques and was provided by a range of organizations. This highlights the opportunities that exist for teaching children risk competence. Additional support will be needed if evaluation activities are to be robust and fully documented.

Probabilistic approach for durable design of concrete cover: application to carbonation

Probabilistic approach is increasingly resorted to in the design of new civil engineering structures and structural analysis of existing constructions. In this article an elementary physical and chemical model able to assess the lifetime of concrete structures subjected to carbonation ingress in natural conditions from results of accelerated tests or results from compressive strength is proposed for a probabilistic utilisation. Calculations performed on several practical applications highlight the importance of the probabilistic approach in the assessment of the reinforced concrete and pre-stressed reinforced concrete lifetimes especially with respect to the Standard context and recommendations in Eurocode 2. Results also allow the homogeneity of Eurocode 2 regarding reliability levels to be discussed and the question of a safety target index to be addressed. Le recours à l’approche probabiliste est de plus en plus fréquent dans la conception des nouvelles structures de génie civil ou dans les analyses structurelles des constructions existantes. Dans cet article, un modèle physico-chimique élémentaire capable d’estimer la durée de vie de structures en béton armé soumises à la carbonatation naturelle à partir de résultats d’essais accélérés ou de mesures de résistances mécaniques à la compression est proposé en vue d’une utilisation dans un contexte probabiliste. Les calculs effectués sur plusieurs applications pratiques mettent en évidence l’importance de l’approche probabiliste pour l’évaluation de la durée de vie des ouvrages en béton armé au regard du contexte normatif et des recommandations de l’Eurocode 2. Les résultats ouvrent également une discussion sur l’hétérogénéité des niveaux de fiabilité de l’Eurocode 2 et la possibilité d’associer d’autres valeurs à l’indice de fiabilité β.

Road safety risk evaluation and target setting using data envelopment analysis and its extensions

Currently, comparison between countries in terms of their road safety performance is widely conducted in order to better understand one's own safety situation and to learn from those best-performing countries by indicating practical targets and formulating action programmes. In this respect, crash data such as the number of road fatalities and casualties are mostly investigated. However, the absolute numbers are not directly comparable between countries. Therefore, the concept of risk, which is defined as the ratio of road safety outcomes and some measure of exposure (e.g., the population size, the number of registered vehicles, or distance travelled), is often used in the context of benchmarking. Nevertheless, these risk indicators are not consistent in most cases. In other words, countries may have different evaluation results or ranking positions using different exposure information. In this study, data envelopment analysis (DEA) as a performance measurement technique is investigated to provide an overall perspective on a country's road safety situation, and further assess whether the road safety outcomes registered in a country correspond to the numbers that can be expected based on the level of exposure. In doing so, three model extensions are considered, which are the DEA based road safety model (DEA-RS), the cross-efficiency method, and the categorical DEA model. Using the measures of exposure to risk as the model's input and the number of road fatalities as output, an overall road safety efficiency score is computed for the 27 European Union (EU) countries based on the DEA-RS model, and the ranking of countries in accordance with their cross-efficiency scores is evaluated. Furthermore, after applying clustering analysis to group countries with inherent similarity in their practices, the categorical DEA-RS model is adopted to identify best-performing and underperforming countries in each cluster, as well as the reference sets or benchmarks for those underperforming ones. More importantly, the extent to which each reference set could be learned from is specified, and practical yet challenging targets are given for each underperforming country, which enables policymakers to recognize the gap with those best-performing countries and further develop their own road safety policy.

Policy Instruments for Managing EU Road Safety Targets: Road Safety Impact Assessment

The Directive 2008/96/EC of European Parliament and of the Council requires the establishment and implementation of procedures relating to road safety impact assessments, road safety audits, the management of road network safety and safety inspections by the Member States. Directive aims to develop procedures with the aim of increasing safety of road infrastructures. Road Safety Impact Assessment (RSIA) is an initial part of road infrastructure safety management systems. This article describes the scope of RSIA procedures, provides detailed recommendations on qualification of auditors, implementation and execution of procedures for the EU Member States. Road safety should play an important role when routes are being selected and safety awareness should be included in the decision making during the designing/planning stage. RSIA is a very beneficial tool that could increase transparency and availability of information, consequently, it leads all parties concerned to well-informed decisions.

Bifurcations, basin erosion and dynamic integrity in a single-mode model of noncontact atomic force microscopy

The nonlinear dynamical behavior of a single-mode model of noncontact AFM is analyzed in terms of attractors robustness and basin integrity. The model considered for the analyses, proposed by Hornstein and Gottlieb (7), consistently includes the nonlinear atomic interaction and the scan control, which appears as parametric excitation. Local bifurcation analyses are carried out to define the overall stability boundary in the excitation parameter space as the envelope of system local escapes, to be compared with the one obtained via numerical simulations. The dynamical integrity of the periodic bounded solutions is studied, and basin erosion is evaluated by means of IF and GIM integrity measures. The obtained erosion profiles allow us to dwell on the possible lack of homogeneous safeness of the stability boundary in terms of attractors robustness and to identify practical escape thresholds ensuring an a priori design safety target.

Resident Handoffs: Appreciating Them as a Critical Competency

Resident Handoffs: Appreciating Them as a Critical Competency

Introducing the Patient Safety Professional

Hospital-acquired complications, such as nosocomial infection, falls, and venous thromboembolism, are well known to be frequent and morbid. Unfortunately, prevention remains challenging. Two widely touted prevention strategies-checklists and reminders-have inherent barriers that limit their use as general solutions to these endemic problems. Likewise, relying upon additional vigilance and efforts of those already caring for patients may guarantee that hospital-acquired complications persist, given the time pressures already constraining bedside clinicians. Consequently, we recommend a new type of clinical role in the hospital setting, the "Patient Safety Professional" (PSP), be considered to ensure that each patient receives individualized prevention strategies to minimize the hazards of hospitalization. We envision the PSP would be an APRN who would assess assigned patients for hospital-acquired complications following explicit protocols relevant to a short list of safety targets; prioritize identified complications based on morbidity, mortality, and hospital costs; and develop and implement plans to decrease hospital-acquired complications, in consultation with physicians and staff nurses on the unit. We have recently hired such an individual at our hospital and describe-through several vignettes-what our PSP does on a daily basis. The rollout, benefits, and costs of PSPs should be carefully evaluated before widespread dissemination is considered. Process measures and clinical outcomes should be monitored. Physician, nurse, and patient satisfaction also need to be assessed. Far from replacing the duties of frontline physicians and nurses assigned to care for the patient, we believe that a PSP will strengthen the safety net for hospitalized patients and serve as an expert resource.

Lessons learnt from PSA for new and advanced reactors in Russia

Abstract Customer requirements to probabilistic safety targets are usually stronger than existing Regulatory or IAEA ones. It appears that industry takes the lead over regulation in this case and forces the designer to find and implement appropriate means to enhance safety, which sometimes have no reference to practical experience. On the other hand, regulatory documents and the existing PSA methodology are mainly oriented to operating plants. This creates problems when developing a PSA as well as performing regulatory reviews. The scope of the PSA may be different depending on a design stage such as the development conceptual, basic or detailed design. In addition, the base case PSA is usually performed for NPP in design. However, a customer may require additional PSA applications to consider, for instance, risk monitoring. In this case the scope of the PSA should be extended to implement special attributes of the application needed that often requires specific information not available at the design stage. Lack of design information affecting PSA development may be associated with incompleteness of the design that is typical for interim design stages and communication problems caused by the involvement of many different companies in the deign activity. To deal with this issue bounding technologies and the iterative PSA development are used. However this sometimes contradicts to the “best estimate” approach recommended by regulatory guides. PSA development for advanced NPPs has raised some issues originated from unknown new components, processes and technologies incorporated into the design of an advanced plant. The paper addresses some issues resolved while carrying out PSAs for advanced NPPs. Some PSA results for new advanced VVER plants under construction and the first lessons learnt from the Fukushima accident are also discussed.

Adapting the US Institute for Safe Medication Practices' Medication Safety Self Assessment tool for community pharmacies in Finland

To adapt a US Institute for Safe Medication Practices' Medication Safety Self Assessment (MSSA) tool to, and test its usefulness in, Finnish community pharmacies. A three-round Delphi survey was used to adapt self-assessment characteristics of the US MSSA tool to Finnish requirements, and to obtain a consensus on the feasibility and significance of these characteristics in assessing the safety of medication practices in community pharmacies. The Delphi modified self-assessment tool was piloted in 18 community pharmacies in order to refine the tool, using a questionnaire containing structured and open-ended questions. A total of 211 self-assessment characteristics were accepted to the self-assessment tool for pilot use by expert panellists in the Delphi rounds. Most pilot users considered the tool as useful in: identifying medication safety targets for development; medication safety assessment; and identifying the strengths of medication safety. The substance of the self-assessment tool was considered as comprehensive and essential for medication safety. Most criticism was regarding: the multiplicity of self-assessment characteristics; interpretation of some characteristics; and that all the characteristics were not yet available. After the modification, according to the pilot users' comments, the final Finnish tool consisted of 230 medication safety characteristics. The study indicated the feasibility of adapting a US medication safety self-assessment tool for use in community pharmacy practice in Finland. More efforts should be made to familiarise Finnish community pharmacists with the self-assessment tool and its benefits, and get them to use the tool as part of their long-term quality improvement.

국가철도안전목표 설정방안 연구

철도안전법을 중심으로한 체계적인 안전관리와 연간 1조원의 철도안전분야에 대한 투자를 통해 최근 6년간 철도사고 발생율의 50%를 저감하였다. 철도사고율이 크게 감소하여 일부 지표는 선진국 수준에 도달하거나 선진국 보다 안전성이 높게 개선되었다. 2005년 이후 국가철도안전 목표는 철도사망자수, 열차사고발생율 및 10억인km당 여객사망자수 등으로 설정되어 운영중이다. 열차의 충돌, 탈선, 화재와 같은 열차사고 발생 및 관련 인명피해가 크게 감소한 반면, 안전사고 및 자살 관련 사고가 급증하고 있어 과거의 국가철도안전목표를 유지하기 어려운 실정이다. 철도운영기관의 안전관리 활동에 대한 노력과 국내의 취약점 도출에 활용할 수 있는 목표로의 변경이 요구되는 시점이다. 본 연구에서는 2011~2012년 사이에 새로이 수립되는 국가차원의 다양한 철도 안전분야 계획들의 목표를 설정하기 위해 필요한 철도사고율 분석, 추세분석, 목표 설정 방법론 분석 등을 수행하였다. According to the national railway safety plan 1 billion US$ have been invested in railway industry every year. As a result, railway accident rate has been reduce to half recent 6 years. Currently, Korea has 3 kinds of national railway safety target, which are accident fatalities, train accident rate, and passenger fatality per passenger kilometer. Increase of railway passengers and train operating companies force to set up new safety target. Current safety target cannot reflect train operator's safety activities because they include suicide and trespass related accidents, which are hard to be controlled by the operators. In order to reflect to the national railway safety plan, new safety targets are proposed in this study.

QRA Model‐Based Risk Impact Analysis of Traffic Flow in Urban Road Tunnels

Road tunnels are vital infrastructures providing underground vehicular passageways for commuters and motorists. Various quantitative risk assessment (QRA) models have recently been developed and employed to evaluate the safety levels of road tunnels in terms of societal risk (as measured by the F/N curve). For a particular road tunnel, traffic volume and proportion of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) are two adjustable parameters that may significantly affect the societal risk, and are thus very useful in implementing risk reduction solutions. To evaluate the impact the two contributing factors have on the risk, this article first presents an approach that employs a QRA model to generate societal risk for a series of possible combinations of the two factors. Some combinations may result in F/N curves that do not fulfill a predetermined safety target. This article thus proposes an "excess risk index" in order to quantify the road tunnel risk magnitudes that do not pass the safety target. The two-factor impact analysis can be illustrated by a contour chart based on the excess risk. Finally, the methodology has been applied to Singapore's KPE road tunnel and the results show that in terms of meeting the test safety target for societal risk, the traffic capacity of the tunnel should be no more than 1,200 vehs/h/lane, with a maximum proportion of 18% HGVs.

Are we there yet? Australian road safety targets and road traffic crash fatalities

BackgroundRoad safety targets are widely used and provide a basis for evaluating progress in road safety outcomes against a quantified goal. In Australia, a reduction in fatalities from road traffic crashes (RTCs) is a public policy objective: a national target of no more than 5.6 fatalities per 100,000 population by 2010 was set in 2001. The purpose of this paper is to examine the progress Australia and its states and territories have made in reducing RTC fatalities, and to estimate when the 2010 target may be reached by the jurisdictions.MethodsFollowing a descriptive analysis, univariate time-series models estimate past trends in fatality rates over recent decades. Data for differing time periods are analysed and different trend specifications estimated. Preferred models were selected on the basis of statistical criteria and the period covered by the data. The results of preferred regressions are used to determine out-of-sample forecasts of when the national target may be attained by the jurisdictions. Though there are limitations with the time series approach used, inadequate data precluded the estimation of a full causal/structural model.ResultsStatistically significant reductions in fatality rates since 1971 were found for all jurisdictions with the national rate decreasing on average, 3% per year since 1992. However the gains have varied across time and space, with percent changes in fatality rates ranging from an 8% increase in New South Wales 1972-1981 to a 46% decrease in Queensland 1982-1991. Based on an estimate of past trends, it is possible that the target set for 2010 may not be reached nationally, until 2016. Unsurprisingly, the analysis indicated a range of outcomes for the respective state/territory jurisdictions though these results should be interpreted with caution due to different assumptions and length of data.ConclusionsResults indicate that while Australia has been successful over recent decades in reducing RTC mortality, an important gap between aspirations and achievements remains. Moreover, unless there are fairly radical ("trend-breaking") changes in the factors that affect the incidence of RTC fatalities, deaths from RTCs are likely to remain above the national target in some areas of Australia, for years to come.

An update on the association between setting quantified road safety targets and road fatality reduction

This note is intended to rectify estimates provided in a previous paper (Wong et al., 2006) of the short-term effectiveness in terms of road fatality reduction of the setting of quantified road safety targets using data from 14 OECD countries during the period 1980–1999. This work is important in measuring the association between target setting and road safety improvement, because such targets are intended to serve as a useful tool to motivate timely road safety measures by the road authorities and others. The estimates to be rectified were based on before-and-after analysis using a comparison group of countries for each country that had set a target. This note first provides a correction to the qualification test for the inclusion of a country in any particular comparison group. It then presents the numerical effects of this correction on the estimates of the effectiveness of setting quantified road safety targets, both in individual countries and across the whole group of countries that set targets in the relevant period. Finally, impacts on the findings of the previous paper are discussed, with the conclusion that the changes in those of the numerical estimates that are affected do not alter the main message of the paper.

Long-term outcome after sirolimus-eluting stents versus bare metal stents in patients with Diabetes mellitus: a patient-level meta-analysis of randomized trials

Although it is widely believed that patients with diabetes mellitus obtain the greatest benefit from drug-eluting stents, convincing evidence on long-term efficacy and safety of these stents is lacking. We performed a meta-analysis of individual patient data from four randomized trials including 583 patients comparing sirolimus eluting with bare metal stents (median follow-up of 4.2years). These were the only specific trials reporting on drug-eluting stents in diabetic patients. The primary endpoint was the incidence of major cardiac events. The secondary endpoints were all-cause mortality and myocardial infarction as a safety endpoint and target lesion re-intervention as an efficacy endpoint. Stent thrombosis was also evaluated. There was a significant reduction in the overall hazard of major cardiac events (hazard ratio [HR] 0.48, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.36-0.63, P<0.001) with sirolimus-eluting stents. This was mostly due to a significant reduction in the overall hazard of repeat revascularization (HR 0.27, 95% CI 0.18-0.41, P<0.001) in favor of sirolimus-eluting stents. However, the overall hazard of death (HR 0.91, 95% CI 0.59-1.41, P=0.68) as well as death or myocardial infarction (HR 0.77, 95% CI 0.54-1.09, P=0.14) were not significantly different between the groups. No significant differences were observed regarding stent thrombosis (HR 0.50, 95% CI 0.15-1.69, P=0.26). Sirolimus-eluting stents are highly effective in reducing the risk for major cardiac events and safe in diabetic patients with coronary artery disease.

ICONE19-43461 RESEARCH ON THE OPTIMIZATION OF SAFETY INFORMATION AND CONTROL SYSTEM OF CPR1000 NPP

Safety information and control system (SICS) of CPR1000 NPP is the backup means for main computerized control means (MCM). Based on the necessity of design SICS, the paper focus on the optimization of SICS. Concerning CPR1000 I&C architecture and feature of DCS product, optimization of SICS shall fulfill the requirement of safety target of CPR1000 NPP. Then, safety target analysis, layout of main control room, plant function analysis and allocation, balance between local operation and remote operation, urgency of operation, requirement of regularity and codes, avoid of CMF and HFE method has been taken into concern for SICS optimization. At last conclusion on SICS optimization is provided.

Evaluation Research in China's Traffic Informationization

On the basis of giving a systematic definition on traffic safety management, this paper puts forward concept of traffic safety comprehensive index, discusses characteristics of uncertainty and the method of system non-optimum analysis, while in the meantime it establishes traffic safety management operation system based on Informationization. In addition, it provides the index of traffic safety control ability and discusses analysis method of uncertain factor based on safety index. Studies have shown that the optimal plan and strategic research of traffic safety is the key to the traffic management. This paper also sets up the function between traffic management input and traffic safety target, discusses the relationship between input and output of Informationization contribution increase rate.