The Railways Branch (RB) under EMSD is the regulatory authority on railway safety in Hong Kong. To monitor railway safety, RB regularly conducts safety compliance inspections on safety critical items (SCIs). Current practice is to adopt risk based approach for identifying high-risk SCIs (from over 1,100 nos. of SCIs) and manually devise an annual inspection schedule for SCIs.
A team was delegated to explore the feasibility of using Artificial Intelligent (AI) predictive approach to carry out SCI inspection and audit planning. In December 2022, our team successfully developed a new AI application, which we first adopted for SCI inspection and audit planning in February 2023.
This application has transformed the methodology of SCI inspection planning in RB from a risk-based approach to a predictive approach. With this new application, we are now able to effectively identify potential risks for railway assets and take remedial action to prevent incidents. Additionally, we are now able to effectively prioritize resources for potential risk areas. The adoption of this new AI application has greatly enhanced the operational efficiency in RB, enabling us to optimize our resources to regulate railways in Hong Kong.