Defence in depth: transport system and defence system

摘要

In a competitive context and strongly regulated, the stakes for a mass transport company are strong: to perpetuate the confidence of its clients, or Transport Authorities, to establish a national and international public image, to guarantee technical and economic performances.The increasing complexity of the transport systems and the reports carried out from incidents justify that a company such as RATP acquires and develops methods and tools to improve the control of the risks related to its activity, and to ensure a better knowledge of its system, by taking into account evolutions of this system since its creation.Showing a high level of safety, which is recognized by all the actors of the transport field, RATP wants to maintain this safety level, even to improve it. But, it keeps facing problems related to the complexity of transport system, requirements and constraints.Safety barriers have been progressively installed within the system, procedures have been written and applied, inspections and audits have been carried out. In addition, experts gathered within a system safety network examine incidents, taken into account human factors (ergonomic, formalized experience feedback). Despite these measures, serious breakdowns still appear but less often and their consequences are better controlled.