Effective Risk Management of Radioactive Material Transport in the Commercial Rail Environment

As a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), Direct Rail Services (DRS) primary mission is to provide reliable nuclear rail services in support of the parent company’s 120-year decommissioning strategy. Since DRS formed in 1995 the company has travelled over 5 million miles and safely transported Spent Fuel on behalf of the entire UK nuclear industry. Over the past 23 years DRS have developed and maintained an industry leading reputation for providing safe, secure, reliable, cost effective services within both nuclear and non-nuclear related markets.Operating as a rail company with a nuclear heritage DRS is an organisation that must conform to all the requirements of statutory regulatory bodies such as Office of Nuclear Regulation - Civil Nuclear Security (ONR-CNS), Department for Transport (DfT), Ministry of Defence (MOD) and Office of Road and Rail (ORR), and the NDA.In the UK, the rail industry holds a reputation for operating with high levels of safety with the GB rail network considered to be one of the safest railways in Europe. To mirror this, the UK Nuclear Industry also demonstrates an impressive record having safely managed nuclear waste for over 50 years. This is underpinned by extensive experience within the industry as well as a strong safety culture.However, although both industries implement a regimented approach to safety and risk management the different methods of risk estimation and agreed safety related decision making processes mean DRS must effectively balance both sets of priorities to manage expectations of governing bodies as well as nuclear industry and non-nuclear commercial customers.Through assessment of the application of the ‘as low as reasonably practicable’ (ALARP) approach as well as other risk management tools DRS aim to produce a paper to identify the different attitudes to safety and risk management in the UK Rail and Nuclear industries. Case studies will be provided to demonstrate how DRS draw these approaches together to form an appropriate and effective approach to risk management, with detail on how these methods could be applied by other nuclear transport providers operating in the global market.