New research on light rail safety reporting: what people say

CIRAS’ stakeholder manager for light rail, Sue Gray, with Carl Williams, chief executive of LRSSB, and Laura Reardon, head of safety risk management at LRSSB

Most people working in light rail believe reporting health and safety concerns is important, a professional duty and a moral responsibility. But that doesn’t always translate into desirable reporting behaviour.

Late in 2025, CIRAS and the Light Rail Safety and Standards Board asked safety managers and frontline workers across four GB light rail networks how they felt about raising health and safety concerns, and obstacles to doing so. The message was clear: under-reporting exists, but low levels of reporting don’t necessarily mean low levels of risk.

Reporting concerns, precursor events and lower-level hazards enables early intervention and strengthening of controls before any serious harm might occur. A healthy safety culture is indicated by a workforce that feels confident about speaking up.

Both workers and safety managers described reporting as critical, for protecting life, preventing harm and improving safety for them and the public. The challenge is the practical, cultural, and psychological conditions that determine whether someone makes a report or stays silent.

What’s reported?

Events that threaten service continuity or demand urgent action are reported most. Smaller issues, precursor events and routine concerns, less so, and managers told us it’s these that often provide the best opportunity for prevention.

Frontline workers mostly reported personal safety threats: abuse, antisocial behaviour, lone working and violence. Managers emphasised operational and system risks like degraded infrastructure, trespass, time pressure and trackside exposure. Reporting systems need to capture both.

Though frontline staff mostly reported abuse and antisocial behaviour, especially when verbal or frequent, it’s still under-reported. This is a warning. Repeated exposure desensitises staff, reporting decreases and harmful behaviour can ‘go underground’. This raises the question: where else might normalisation be dulling sensitivity to risk?

What impacts behaviour?

Reporting behaviour is shaped by capacity, opportunity and motivation. For example, people may know the main reporting route but not what or when to report, or about alternatives. Systems might not work in signal blackspots. Operational pressures may leave little time for listening and follow-up. People can lose motivation to report if experience tells them nothing changes.

Feedback and responsiveness are central to reporting culture. People repeatedly described concerns disappearing into a ‘black hole’. They want someone to listen, understand and act. An automated response isn’t enough. Managers recognised that feedback reinforces confidence, shapes peer norms and makes reporting feel worthwhile. By contrast, silence feels like indifference.

The same applies to a ‘just culture’. It doesn’t arise just from policy statements, but from staff members’ everyday interactions with supervisors or controllers, and from knowing whether information they’ve shared is used for learning or blame. Where staff feel dismissed, doubt confidentiality or fear repercussions, reporting can become selective. When they’re treated fairly and respectfully, it becomes more routine.

Everyday improvements

There are three main takeaways from the research. First, organisations should be wary of low reporting volumes, which could indicate a healthy system, but also one in which people decide reporting isn’t worth the bother.

Second, major improvement may lie not in redesign, but in everyday reporting culture: clearer thresholds, better route signposting, more frequent training, more reliable feedback and visible ownership of actions.

Third, precursor reporting and lower-level concerns should be treated as valuable safety intelligence, not noise.

The research points not to a disengaged workforce, but one that cares about safety, whose willingness to report is shaped by systems, relationships and expectations. That means improvement is possible.

By making reporting simpler, safer, more credible and visibly worthwhile, rail organisations will increase reporting volumes, improve risk visibility, strengthen trust, and support a more mature learning culture. In a safety-critical sector, that is a strategic necessity.

CIRAS and LRSSB are jointly using their research in light rail to inform future projects involving the wider sector. These aim to explore practical ways to drive positive change in reporting culture across light rail. To find out more, contact susan.gray@ciras.org.uk.

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