SABS develops safety standards for rail

Ed Richardson
THE SOUTH African Bureau of Standards (SABS) has begun to develop safety standards for railways "in consultation with the railway industry".
This follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding by Eugene Julies, president and CEO of the SABS, and Sipho Msikinya, director-general of the National Department of Transport (NDOT).
The project forms part of the establishment of a railway safety regulator to maintain and improve standards of railway safety, as mentioned by the transport minister Dullah Omar in a recent speech to Parliament, according to the SABS.
"The standards will play a vital role in the safety of rail transport in our country," he continued, "and could facilitate uniform and harmonised standards for the railway industry of the entire SADC - and perhaps even the sub-Sahara region," says Julies.
"The first step will be the formation of a Technical Committee to oversee the production of the standards under the chairmanship of the Department of Transport," says Msikinya.
"Once constituted, the Technical Committee will then oversee the production of draft guidance documents, which are, in effect, standards for standards.
"This Committee is going to have a lot of work to do, as more than a hundred national and international standards will need to be considered for adoption in a short time frame," he says.