RAIB Investigation costs (estimate)

[edwin_m]

If the investigation finds fault and it normally does, I would have thought a proportion of that investigation would be paid for by the insurers of the company/companies involved.

I think that would compromise the policy of not ascribing blame.

 

[4069]

RAIB investigations do not attribute blame or liability.

 

[Dave W]

I think £5m to run a highly specialist government body of 40+ staff is an absolute bargain, especially considering RAIB’s “added value” to a multi billion pound industry.

I had the privilege to visit the Branch down at Farnborough in 2015 on business and thought the setup was most impressive. Since then RAIB’s output has diversified with the digests and using the gov.uk platform more effectively too.

 

[Taunton]

If the investigation finds fault and it normally does, I would have thought a proportion of that investigation would be paid for by the insurers of the company/companies involved.

Having some indirect contacts with the aviation side, the insurers typically appoint their own accident investigators and advisers who do their own (unpublished) detailed reports. These are generally freelances, though of long standing, rather than salaried insurance staff.

In aviation, the majority of such investigators, in these multiple organisations, are ex-RAF etc, not because they bring some special ability as such, but because they come commonly at middle age, around 40 when they leave the military, with extensive experience of the environment, and good for another 25 years or so of work. The railway doesn't seem to have this background pool for its staff. They used to, of course, always rely for a century or more on the railway side of the Royal Engineers, who brought with them their onetime military titles, which they always insisted on using; reports and press releases were traditionally peppered with "Colonel this" or "Major that", which finally seems to have gone. Not sure why when the AAIB, with those of comparable onetime rank, never did this. Sometimes this brought a rather overbearing military discipline aspect to the report.

 

[underbank]

Working out the "cost" of anything, such as a RAIB investigation, is never going to be an exact science. Taking total costs and dividing it into the number of investigations is a lazy/simplistic average which has no practical use and shouldn't ever be used as anything more than for passing internet, and certainly never for any decision making process.

The thing is, if, say, the costs are £5m and it, say, handles 100 investigations, in that year, the lazy/simplistic average cost is £50k. That, in no way, takes into the account the difference in incidents, i.e. a Ladbroke Grove will "cost" substantially more than the South Devon rotten toilet floor in real life, so using an average of £50k for each does more harm than good.

To follow that through, in the next year, costs remain the same £5m (as most costs are staffing which are fundamentally similar year on year except for inflationary pressures), but there are more incidents, in fact, 200 incidents. The same level of staff work their socks off and manage to handle them all. Now, the average "cost" is only £25k.

Proper costing processes, allocations of costs to incidents, etc is required, and I'd hope a large public sector organisation would have proper costing accounting in place.

You really can't make decisions or evaluate performance on such a simplistic lazy basis as dividing total costs by numbers of incidents (or numbers of anything really!).

It's like the lazy "cost" of a wasted GP appointment being £50 (if I remember rightly) and the "cost" of a fire engine callout to a false alarm being £500. It's complete rubbish. I'd hope the GP would spend the 10 minutes doing something else, such as paperwork, and the "cost" of a fire engine call out from a manned station is nothing more than the diesel used!

For decision making, marginal costs are what needs to be looked at, i.e. the "extra" cost, not average cost. Sunk costs (costs that happen anyway) need to be ignored completely, and fixed costs, step costs etc need special treatment. It's variable and marginal costs that matter the most when it comes to decision making as they're the ones that are proportional to activity.

 

[Taunton]

It's like the lazy "cost" of a wasted GP appointment being £50 (if I remember rightly) and the "cost" of a fire engine callout to a false alarm being £500. It's complete rubbish. I'd hope the GP would spend the 10 minutes doing something else, such as paperwork, and the "cost" of a fire engine call out from a manned station is nothing more than the diesel used!

You are of course quite right (I've spent my life it seems doing costing systems), and of course the GP example given works on averages, some take more than 10 minutes, some less, typically x% of appointments don't turn up so you overbook, etc.

But an extension is what are the costing figures ultimately provided for. In the GP case, if there is pressure for more efficiency, it's always good to get a shot in first against the patients rather than at your own organisation. Look at the detail and a significant number of the "wasted" appointments might be the GP's own internal inefficiency, appointments left in when the patient has been sent to hospital, patient transport ambulance didn't turn up, etc (I'm speaking from considerable experience here). But the numbers in this case are provided for a different reason, for public consumption.

 

[Bikeman78]

I agree with you there. The other post was almost a dig at police accident investigations.

Serious and fatal accidents/collisions are thoroughly investigated both at the scene and once the scene is cleared, I’d say to the extent of any rail accident. The difference in rail/air accidents from road collisions is that these naturally require an knowledge of the workings of the industry and its safety systems etc, largely I’d imagine, because not everyone can just get in a train and drive it, or fly an aircraft etc, in the same way you can to all intents and purposes just get in a car and drive it.

With road vehicle crashes, skid marks on the road surface are measured, lightbulbs are examined and the vehicles will have a thorough mechanical examination. Of course, most cars don’t have a telematics box like aircraft and trains do, which, if anything, would make investigations more difficult I’d imagine.

I've watched all three series of The Crash Detectives. It's based in south east Wales around Newport and Cwmbran. I found it very interesting. It is possible to determine some details from the engine management system, e.g. in one case it told them what gear the car was in and the engine rpm at time of impact. From that they could work out the speed at which the vehicle was moving.

 

[underbank]

I've watched all three series of The Crash Detectives. It's based in south east Wales around Newport and Cwmbran. I found it very interesting. It is possible to determine some details from the engine management system, e.g. in one case it told them what gear the car was in and the engine rpm at time of impact. From that they could work out the speed at which the vehicle was moving.

I've watched all the air crash investigation programs, and found them fascinating. Given that cars (and most trains) are pretty well fully controlled by computers these days, I wonder why we don't have the equivalent of the black (orange) box they have on aircraft to record a car/train's speed, gear, braking, etc as it would only need to be a small recording device or SD card to log feeds of data from the onboard computer. (Perhaps modern trains do have such a thing now?).

 

[43096]

I've watched all the air crash investigation programs, and found them fascinating. Given that cars (and most trains) are pretty well fully controlled by computers these days, I wonder why we don't have the equivalent of the black (orange) box they have on aircraft to record a car/train's speed, gear, braking, etc as it would only need to be a small recording device or SD card to log feeds of data from the onboard computer. (Perhaps modern trains do have such a thing now?).

Trains do have data recorders (referred to as OTMR - On Train Monitoring and Recording - or OTDR - On Train Data Recording) and have had for many years.

 

[ainsworth74]

Trains do have data recorders (referred to as OTMR - On Train Monitoring and Recording - or OTDR - On Train Data Recording) and have had for many years.

Isn't a requirement to be on the national network at this point?

 

[43096]

Isn't a requirement to be on the national network at this point?

Yep. It’s a mandatory piece of safety equipment for any driving cab on Network Rail infrastructure.

 

[chipbury]

Don't forget the MAIB, they are a similar agency for Maritime incidents.

Their team of inspectors are on short notice to travel overseas if a ship with British interests has an incident. I think a higher percentage of their investigations are fishing industry and leisure boats rather than merchant vessels.

 

[DarloRich]

According to their 2020 annual report they spent £5m that year. As to whether they can recover any costs im not sure.

£5m for RAIB? wow that seems like very good value for money.

EDIT: I bet they save more than that by completing thier investigations, sharing information and driving changes.

 

[Meerkat]

£5m for RAIB? wow that seems like very good value for money.

EDIT: I bet they save more than that by completing thier investigations, sharing information and driving changes.

would be a tricky calculation! The saved cost of fewer accidents versus the higher cost of ensuring things are done properly and safely - costs which aren't necessarily borne by the same budget.

 

[swt_passenger]

Isn't ”it” a requirement to be on the national network at this point?

WAIB (writing accident investigation branch) have released this bulletin as you missed out a word and reversed your meaning.

 

[ainsworth74]

WAIB (writing accident investigation branch) have released this bulletin as you missed out a word and reversed your meaning.

The conclusions and recommendations made by the WAIB will be given all due consideration and treated with the seriousness that such an esteemed body deserves...

 

[Dave W]

would be a tricky calculation! The saved cost of fewer accidents versus the higher cost of ensuring things are done properly and safely - costs which aren't necessarily borne by the same budget.

It would be tricky, but it ought to be considered money well spent regardless.

This is possibly reaching a bit, but, I reckon:

Better investigative capability = safer railway = fewer incidents = higher safety reputation = more revenue...

(Not that the funding of RAIB is in question, but there are 45 fully licensed members of RDG (per here)... Even if they were suddenly asked to pay, and taking no account of type or size (financially or geographically) of their operations, £110k each per year seems a pretty reasonable return for the above)

 

[Bigfoot]

£110k each per year seems a pretty reasonable

For a yearly cost of under 3 drivers. Pretty good going. If only other government departments were that efficient.