Relevant matters of standardisation of the terminology in risk management in railway transportation

Abstract

In advance of the revision of GOST 33433-2015. Functional safety. Risk management on railway transport, a basic standard that defines the approach and general rules for managing risks in railway transportation that are associated with the functional safety of infrastructure facilities and rolling stock, it is imperative that we refine the definitions in the area of assessment and handling of risks associated with the operation of railway transportation as a technical system. This paper aims to conduct a comparative analysis of the key notions and their definitions as applied to risk management that have become part of national standards and regulatory documents in the Russian Federation. The risks that arise from the effects of various uncertainties on the achievement of the specified goals serve as a qualitative and quantitative estimation of the threats that manifest themselves in the process of technical systems operation. The absence of a single definition of risk and generally accepted concept of risk management complicates the introduction of the risk-oriented principles in business management and causes conflicts and misunderstanding between different levels of management and responsibility. Using the example of an analysis of regulatory support of risk management in railway transportation, the paper discusses the requirement of mutual coordination of the existing regulatory documents and guidelines that regulate the corporate risk management process as part of a single concept for the purpose of ensuring a single understanding of the conceptual and practical aspects of the used terms and concepts. The authors touch upon the definition of the basic concept of “risk”. They also discuss the harmonisation of the approaches and terminologies used in the Russian and foreign risk management standards.