Impact case study database

The safety culture methodology described above is standardised, fully tested, and free for ANSPs to use. Its application has supported one of the largest ever international and industry-wide programmes of safety culture assessment and development, as recognised in the project’s receipt of the 2014 Chartered Institute of Ergonomics & Human Factors Presidents’ Award [A]. The methodology has been used in over 30 European ANSPs, with more than 30,000 survey respondents and 1,000+ focus group participants [3]. Since it was first established in the literature, the methodology [1] has been applied in over 20 ANSPs. LSE has helped ANSPs to run the survey and analyse data, while EUROCONTROL has used the findings of this in work with ANSPs to develop their safety culture. Through these processes, the methodology has had impacts on individual ANSPs, the ATM industry as a whole, and the wider aviation sector. It is also beginning to deliver impacts in other industries (e.g. financial services).

ANSP-level impacts: the safety culture methodology helps organisations to identify both strengths and areas for development in safety management. Since 2013, its application has had wide-ranging impacts on participating ANSPs, supporting improvements against the six thematic dimensions set out in the conceptual model published in [1]. Illustrative examples of such impacts are outlined here. These impacts, occurring from 2013 to 2020, have been collected from a sample of seven of the 30 ANSPs using the methodology. Those seven ANSPs run between 150,000 and two million flights annually in countries across Europe (XXX). All impacts summarised here are described further in a draft EUROCONTROL White Paper [B, pp. 12-18 ]. Changes were realised across all of the ANSPs in the six thematic areas of the conceptual model; e.g. improving incident reporting and management commitment to safety. However, the methodology allows specific changes in pursuit of these broader thematic improvements to vary according to the needs of different ANSPs. Examples of the sorts of specific changes used to achieve thematic improvements are outlined below. Some of these were widely applied (e.g. improved communication on safety, improving incident reporting), whilst others (e.g. relating to executive activities, investments in safety) were limited to specific ANSPs [B, pp. 12-18 ].

Management commitment to safety. Changes to support the instantiation and emphasis of management priorities on safety include: increasing the focus on safety in organisational decision-making; executive board meetings with explicit focus on safety; employing more safety specialists; and strategies for emphasising management commitment to safety (e.g. safety-focused CEO videos, walkarounds, town hall meetings, etc.).

Collaborating for safety. To improve team-working on safety, ANSPs reported changes including: ensuring technical staff are represented in safety decision-making groups; increasing staff participation in safety activities; safety training for non-operational staff; and regular workshops for safety managers and controllers to share perspectives.

Incident reporting. ANSPs report: developing new voluntary and proactive reporting tools for capturing safety information; introducing annual training for incident investigators; changing organisational departments leading incident investigations; and developing policies for ensuring incidents are investigated fairly (e.g. using independent investigators). One large ANSP with 500,000+ flights annually reported increases of up to 80% in incident reporting, alongside significant improvements in the quality of information gathered on errors and safety problems.

Communication. Changes include: publishing a clear overview of safety roles and responsibilities in their organisation; constant and clear communication on changes in the safety management system; and promotion of work and changes by the safety team.

Safety support. ANSPs report: increasing resources and staffing for managing safety; a focus on reducing fatigue amongst controllers (e.g. through improving rota systems); and ensuring safety is explicitly considered in change management, procurement, and project management.

Colleague commitment to safety was not identified as a concern in the sample.

ATM industry-level impact: the application of the methodology throughout European ATM has helped prioritise and support the development of a coordinated approach to safety culture across Europe. The majority of European ANSPs have used the methodology. Many also participate in an annual safety culture workshop hosted by EUROCONTROL and attended by LSE researchers, at which they share approaches both to developing organisational safety culture and to addressing industry-wide challenges such as fatigue management [C]. For EUROCONTROL, the methodology provides a mechanism to engage ANSPs on the topic of safety culture, to benchmark and monitor that culture, and to make recommendations for improving safety at both ANSP and industry levels [B].

CEOs of ANSPs using the methodology (including four of the seven contributors to **[B]**) state that the assessment process has helped them to recognise safety culture as “ the bedrock” of operations within ANSPs, as a “ business imperative”, and “ the compass which shows your current position so that you can reach your desired destination” [D]. They argue that safety culture enables them to drive change from the top of the organisation and report that information sharing on safety has improved drastically. Many ANSPs now conduct their own safety culture surveys and workshops, with some (such as XXX and XXX) using the methodology described here. Others, such as XXX, draw upon the methodology to develop their own approaches [B, pp. 26 ]. The scientific, coordinated, and collaborative approach of using the methodology in European ATM has contributed to safety culture featuring prominently on ANSP websites and communications, including reporting on the safety culture surveys in high-level corporate strategy documents or annual reports [E].

Aviation-industry impact: the methodology developed for ATM has been adapted and extended to the wider aviation system. In cooperation with the European Cockpit Association (ECA; the Union for European Pilots), the safety culture survey has been customised to measure safety culture across the airline industry. In 2016, a sample of 7,000 pilots from more than 30 airlines completed the survey, run by LSE and ECA. This was the largest ever engagement of pilots on safety culture. The results, reported in [5], provided crucial new insight on issues such as zero-hour contracts and ineffective fatigue management. Those insights catalysed and informed MEPs’ questions on Europe’s “Ultra-safe aviation industry” [F]; further investigation by the European Commission into the working conditions of airline crews [G]; and European Aviation Safety Agency recommendations on fatigue management [H].

Major airlines have also used the insights generated through their use of the safety culture survey to improve their own safety management. EasyJet, for example, made changes in its schedules and rosters, delivered new training, and created a pilot-peer support programme following its first use of the safety culture survey [I].

The survey is also being used to measure safety culture across the entire aviation system at specific sites such as Luton Airport [6] and Bristol Airport; in 2021, discussions are ongoing to extend this to other airports (e.g. XXX). Luton Airport, for example, was surveyed by EUROCONTROL and LSE in 2016 [6]. Here, the methodology has helped to develop a more harmonised approach to managing safety by bringing together 15 different organisations within the aviation system. The “Luton Safety Stack” pulls together airport, ATM, airline, and ground handling staff to help manage safety across interfaces. Improvement has been supported by regular workshops between these various organisations on topics such as improving communication and learning from incidents, and through the use of self-managed surveys (based on that developed at LSE) to improve coordination between them [J]. This approach led to a revision of procedures for improving the safety of ground handling at Luton airport. Improvements associated with this were recognised by a 2018 award from the International Air Transport Association [K].

Impacts in other industries: impacts of the safety culture methodology are now also being felt in industries outside ATM. It has been used by the Financial Conduct Authority to shape thinking (for both the regulator and firms) on how to effectively conceptualise, measure, and manage culture in the financial industry [L]. The OECD has also used the methodology as a framework for investigating the extent to which workers in regulated entities think behavioural insights principles would be effective in promoting safety behaviours. It has been applied in this context to develop a toolkit for improving safety culture at: the National Energy Board in Canada; Agency for Safety, Energy and Environment in Mexico; Commission for Regulation of Utilities, Ireland; and Authority of Electricity Regulation, Oman [M] [N].