How can we improve safety culture in transport organizations? A review of interventions, effects and influencing factors

• Published in: Transportation research. Part F, Traffic psychology and behaviour Vol. 54; pp. 28 - 46
• Main Authors: Nævestad, Tor-Olav, Hesjevoll, Ingeborg Storesund, Phillips, Ross Owen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.04.2018; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Accidents; Air transportation; Culture; Fatalities; Marine transportation; Occupational hazards; Organizational aspects; Organizations; Rail transportation; Safety; Transportation industry
• ISSN: 1369-8478; 1873-5517
• DOI: 10.1016/j.trf.2018.01.002

•Here are the revised bullet points: We identify 20 studies of safety culture interventions in transport organizations.•Most studies report improvements, but few employ high quality designs.•Interventions seem effective, but comprehensive and resource demanding.•Future research should develop simpler interventions.•We identify four key activities and eight key influencing factors. The main objectives of the present study are to (a) map interventions that can be used to develop good safety culture in transport companies within road, sea, air and rail transport, (b) assess expected effects of interventions on safety culture and safety outcomes and (c) identify factors influencing safety culture change. By systematically reviewing the scientific literature, we identify 20 studies that describe and evaluate interventions to improve safety culture in road, rail, sea and air transport organizations. The review is reported according to PRISMA guidelines. The interventions studied vary widely in their comprehensiveness, but a lack of both standardized outcome measures and controlled evaluations means that it is difficult to compare different interventions, either within or across sectors. Most studies, however, report improvements in safety culture where this is measured. We find that attempts to understand the mechanisms of cultural change leading to behavioural change and improved safety performance are lacking. Although safety culture is an organizational measure, we only found one peer-reviewed study of an attempt to improve safety culture in a single air transport organization and no studies of this in the maritime sector. We conclude that on the whole the reviewed safety culture interventions seem to be effective, but comprehensive and resource demanding. We suggest that future research should develop simpler interventions by focusing on the basic requirements of safety culture change. We contribute to this by identifying four key activities (content) which seem to be common in all the reviewed interventions, and eight key factors (process) influencing the success of efforts to influence safety culture. The basic requirements of safety culture change seem to be to institutionalize joint discussions of work place hazards facilitated by manager commitment and employee involvement.