Introduction
This section summarises our key findings across the railway sectors we regulate. It identifies the main risk areas and assesses how effectively these are being managed, drawing on a range of evidence including inspections, investigations, and RM3 assessments.
RM3 is our core tool for assessing the effectiveness of safety management systems. It evaluates how well organisations manage risk across areas such as policy, planning, implementation, monitoring, and organisational control, using a five point maturity scale to identify strengths and areas for improvement.
Assessing harm and risk performance
We assess safety performance using a combination of actual harm and modelled risk. Actual harm is measured using the Fatalities and Weighted Injuries (FWI) index, while modelled risk uses industry tools such as the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB)’s Safety Risk Model (SRM) and Precursor Indicator Model (PIM), alongside equivalent models in other sectors.
These measures provide valuable insight into risk levels but are largely retrospective. We therefore take a broader approach, combining them with RM3 assessments, inspection evidence, and other intelligence - such as near miss data, asset performance, and safety culture - to form a rounded view of industry performance.
Our analysis also considers wider factors such as passenger and freight volumes, which influence trends in harm and risk.
Data sources
This report draws on a range of data, including:
- Network Rail performance and assurance reports
- ORR Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR) for non mainline sectors
- Industry incident reporting and inspection outcomes
- RSSB’s Safe Insights database and PIM dashboard
Safety data for April 2025 to March 2026 will be published separately in our annual statistical release in September 2026.