In South Africa uncertainties seem vast for the rail industry, however, the Railway Safety Regulator (RSR) together with the Operators and other higher-education institutions are making efforts to preserve the rail industry as well as to improve it. As part of the RSR’s mandate to oversee safety in the rail industry, Technical Awareness Workshops are conducted as a training and awareness strategy to disseminate information regarding the regulatory knowledge and tools. This is a form of training and awareness given to the industry and internally to refresh existing knowledge and to provide additional information where applicable.
The RSR has re-modeled the Technical Awareness Workshops, which previously was provided to the Operators, but without a measure of how much of the content was understood by the Operators. The adaptation included a Software application that was utilised pre, during, and post the Technical Awareness Workshop conducted.
From the re-modeled Technical Awareness Workshops, this study has sampled the Safety Permit Conformity Assessment Methodology (SPCAM) and Human Factors Management (HFM) Technical awareness workshops that were conducted virtually.
The Operators during the Technical Awareness Workshop were given the opportunity to provide immediate feedback on questions that were asked using the Software application on SPCAM and HFM concepts, which can have a direct implication to safety culture practices; depending on how Operators also view and implement safety culture. This paper therefore provides insights on the adaption of the Technical Awareness Workshops as well as the responses provided by the Operators through the Software application; it also provides insights on the benefits of the adaptation in relation to RSRs’ ability to track the disseminated information and the trends thereof. Lastly, it evaluates the extent to which SPCAM and HFM are embedded into the Operators’ system and improvements that can be made, where applicable.