Changing National Safety Culture Through Data Sharing

摘要

In late 2004, the U.S. Joint Program Development Offi ce of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) convened the Aviation Safety Information Sharing Task (ASIST) team to defi ne an ideal future state for safety information sharing in the commercial aviation community. The team offered a vision for a future in which the air transportation system is accident free, because hazards are identifi ed and risks are managed before they cause accidents. Safety information from stakeholders would be accessed through an information sharing process available to decision makers for managing risk. But the road to this future state requires a great deal of change — today, data is closely held to prevent inappropriate use; in the envisioned future, data would be shared among participants through secure networks and under mutually agreeable rules of engagement. Getting there requires both building technology and processes from the vision of the fi nal state, and building trust though developing ongoing safety data sharing efforts. In that sense, it is a call for national safety culture change. This paper will discuss in detail a key set of efforts supporting this broader vision, embodied in the Voluntary Aviation Safety Information-sharing Process (VASIP). VASIP provides a means for the commercial aviation industry and the FAA to collect and share safety-related information and to use that information to proactively identify, analyze and correct safety issues that affect commercial aviation. VASIP is a vehicle for national safety culture change through data sharing. It is, therefore, a key fi rst step toward building the attributes that will lead the industry toward a worldwide aviation system that systematically mitigates risk and continually reduces the likelihood of accidents.