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U.S. Department of Transportation U.S. Department of Transportation Icon United States Department of Transportation United States Department of Transportation

About The CCDP

Monday, September 18, 2017

Many industries that include a degree of risk in their daily operations have a system in place to report and analyze close calls. Encouraged by the success of the close call system in the aviation industry, the Federal Railroad Association (FRA) formed a Planning Committee representing stakeholders from industry, labor organizations, and government in June 2002. The Committee's purpose was to determine how best to introduce the importance of studying close calls to the railroad industry. By the end of April 2003, the FRA's Office of Research and Development presented "Human Factors Workshop: Improving Railroad Safety through Understanding Close Calls" in Baltimore, MD.

In 2006, the FRA sponsored a pilot project supported by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS): the Confidential Close Call Reporting System (C3RS), which tested a voluntary and confidential close call reporting system in the railroad industry. The pilot program determined that it is possible to change punishment-based work cultures to more trusting environments in which close call data can be reported without fear of retaliation. The railroad pilot program ended in June 2015.

In 2013, the Close Call Reporting System was implemented for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). A new, web-based submission tool has been employed for the collection of close call reports. This project is currently ongoing.

A new CCDP project, SafeOCS, aims to change the punishment-based work culture in the oil and gas industries, which prevents the collection of crucial close call data. SafeOCS is being developed under BTS and the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).