ABSTRACT
Transportation safety boards are bodies charged with investigating transportation accidents and incidents and making recommendations to improve transportation safety. We developed a generic model that identifies five processes which capture the work of multi-modal transportation safety boards: initiation, fact-finding, safety deficiency identification, recommendation, and feedback. Viewing the existing boards in the light of this model revealed an evolution of safety boards, where specific stages can be identified that: give the board an independent status to assure the objectivity of its findings, change the focus of the board’s investigations from finding fault to determining causation, extend the remit of boards from modality-specific to multi-modality, separate safety deficiency identification as a specific process and major board objective, and look to safety studies of multiple events instead of investigations of single events as the major source of recommendations. Although aviation and maritime boards show some concern about their loss of autonomy as they are merged into multi-modal boards, this concern should be offset by the improvements to safety resulting from the ability to learn from the experiences of other modalities, a better focus on the systemic origins of accidents and incidents, and the increased public presence the merged board provides.
