

Assessments: Railways
Railway assessments at Technical Safety BC
Remote audit and assessments during COVID-19
Technical Safety BC’s Railway Safety Program has created a remote audit process to continue regulating the general railway safety standards for the protection of the public. The process is guided by WorkSafeBC’s COVID-19 and returning to safe operation - Phase 2. WorkSafeBC administers the workers’ compensation system in British Columbia and promotes the prevention of workplace injury, illness, and disease.
We have a phased approach to our remote audit process:
- In the first phase, we will audit smaller, low-risk facilities. This allows us to test out the audit process and make the necessary adjustments before we start to tackle both the larger and higher risk facilities.
- The process involves a request for documentation in order to determine compliance, and a follow-up phone call to discuss status and areas of concern or noncompliance.
When we are able to resume our physical audit process, we will be directed by the following:
- Technical Safety BC’s COVID-19 Inspection Guidelines
- WorkSafeBC’s COVID-19 Information and Processes
- The COVID-19 procedures of each individual site
During this time, you can stay up-to-date with WorkSafeBC’s transportation and COVID-19 safety protocols. Additionally, we recommend taking the following measures:
- Identify risk areas
- Worker areas
- Common areas such as meeting rooms, washrooms, and lunch rooms
- Common surfaces such as door handles and light switches
- Areas of interaction with the public
- Passenger areas
- Inside rail cars
- Platforms
- Elevators and escalators, and related common surfaces
- Worker areas
- Consider these actions
- Train staff on new policies and procedures
- Sanitize common areas in stations
- Frequently clean trains and common surfaces
- Apply practicable crowd control measures within a train car (blocking seats, barriers etc.)
- Apply practicable crowd control measures at a station, such as buffer zones to maintain distancing during loading/unloading
- Provide hand sanitizing stations where practicable
- Post occupancy limit signage in stations and rail cars
- Use signage and monitors to communicate social distancing, hand washing and other pertinent messages
- Post your COVID-19 safety plan
Inspection Fees
Inspection fees vary based on the day of the week, and the duration of the inspection.