Ideagen Plc secures £4.9 million deal to replace RSSB's British rail incident reporting database
Mar 30, 16
Governance, Risk and Compliance software vendor, Ideagen, has signed a deal with the UK Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) to replace an industry-wide safety reporting system for the UK rail sector with their Ideagen Coruson cloud-based software application.
The new Safety Management Information System, known as SMIS+, will replace the RSSB’s current SMIS database which acts as a central reporting facility for all rail safety incidents in the UK.
Built on Ideagen’s GRC cloud application, Coruson, SMIS+ will increase risk and safety reporting levels and improve overall safety on the UK’s rail network. Coruson will also replace the RSSB’s Close Call System (CCS) to record and manage low-severity events.
Ideagen CEO, David Hornsby, said: “We are delighted to confirm that Ideagen has been selected by the RSSB as the preferred vendor of choice to provide a SMIS+ solution to the rail sector.
“This contract is a major one for Ideagen and is the result of a strong commercial and technical bid for the contract in late 2015.
“Both Ideagen and the RSSB share the same vision of how innovation can drive safety through the UK rail sector and this opportunity to provide a game changing and transformational project is one that we are very excited about and eager to get underway.”
The current SMIS system is the rail industry’s primary safety database and reporting system, with approximately 75,000 events recorded by train and freight operators annually. It has been in place since 2002 but now RSSB and its members recognise the need to leverage the latest SMAC technology (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) including a social user experience, mobile working, advanced data capture and business intelligence and cloud deployment.
Ideagen’s Coruson will replace the current SMIS system, helping the RSSB:
- Capture safety event data more effectively to improve learning from potential or actual incidents;
- Introduce a common process for tracking, managing and investigating safety events as well as for tracking and managing local actions and recommendations;
- Define industry-wide key performance indicators (KPIs) while allowing rail operating companies to customise their own.
George Bearfield, Director of System Safety at RSSB, said: “Britain's railways are among the safest in Europe and highly regarded for their approach to data, analysis and evidence-based decision making. As part of the industry's health and safety strategy, there is a commitment to improve this capability through next generation reporting systems and risk models and that’s where SMIS+ comes in.
“We’re delighted to be working with Ideagen to help us deliver SMIS+, as well as being a collaboration across the whole industry. This is a programme that will benefit Network Rail, train operators and infrastructure contractors to create progressive safety management systems of the future, exploiting the best available techniques and technology.”
Picture Caption: Ideagen and RSSB agree SMIS+ contract. (Left to Right) Jeff Brewer, Programme Manager at RSSB; Eileen Pevreall, Information Technology Director at RSSB; Chris Fenton, CEO of RSSB and David Hornsby, CEO of Ideagen.