Transit Risk: Technocratic and Sociological Perspectives
How does it feel to be safe? Compare this with technical accuracy in calculations. To be accurate in quantifying permissible exposure limits or the incident energy of an arc flash or the structural integrity of a multistory building. Which is better? People have found ways to measure hazards that exist within the world. Hazards exist for people at both work and in recreation. Mathematical computations with exacting precision have been found effective at identifying how much of a risk exposure a human can tolerate. Using mathematics gives people a benchmark to measure what a person can and can not withstand while at work or play. These calculations provide numerical values to help people make decisions to control risks. While these calculations are helpful, it does not tell the whole story. If people do not manage the risk, then the risk will manage the people. The science behind how something works and the quantification thereof only provides the measurement for a permissible exposure limit. Making decisions on how to control risk based purely on the calculated number does not include the sociological aspects of the world in which people exist. How a person feels about the work or activity coupled with their intrinsic biological, physiological and neurological aspects of the risk exposure also affect the outcome of the situation. This is risky business and something that needs balance. It is important that risk managers and safety professionals recognize the balance of both the technocratic and sociological aspects of their leadership. Calculation methods that support programs, policies and rules are only part of the consideration for risk management leadership. This is because safety is also sociological.
The Term “Risk”
For purposes of continuity in terminology within this article, the definition of risk is the uncertainty of an outcome given the situational variables.
The complexities of the technocratic world in which has been created is complex. Engineering discoveries have allowed people to improve, for example, the movement of goods and services through innovative transit methods. And with these engineering discoveries, comes additional risks. Volumes of texts, standards, rules, and policies exist to help people control risk based on the computational science and mathematical facts discovered about risks. Compound these rules with the actual moment in time wherein a human rationalizes complexities through their experiences and education. Systems that are engineered to provide detailed schematics on how to operate a machine or install a mechanical system, does the person perform a mental calculation at the moment of risk exposure? Each step-by-step computation of a risk exposure is not simultaneously recollected at the exact moment of risk exposure.
Think on the following calculations for:
Kilonewtons
Incident energy in kilojoules
Meters per second
Containment volume
Force in mass times acceleration
Time weighted averages
Permissible exposure limits
These measurements based on scientific calculation methods are applicable to hazards that exist in the world. How does a person actually calculate these measurements at a time of risk exposure? Does the person simply recognize the work as hazardous and balance the risk with their own abilities, the organizational rules and the legal and ethical implications of executing the task without harm and free from damage to self or property? Otherwise, how does a person calculate risk exposure in a moment of time to make a rational decision to avoid risk for a person’s self, family, company, community, and world? Calculations of risk exist in the moment of exposure, but it is not possible for a human to manage all the variability of situations that exist in a moment of risk exposure. Risk control is a bridge of both the technocratic and the sociological.
Transit Methods
When people enter a transit vehicle to drive, for example, and choose to operate that equipment, then how is that person interacting with the vehicle as it was designed? Variables exist that the vehicle operator must take into consideration. Visibility, weather conditions, lighting conditions, and equipment reliability. For example, a person on a Sunday morning: the vehicle operator might be a private owner of the transit vehicle and performing personal activities. While, another vehicle operator might be making deliveries with a large transit vehicle equipped with a trailer. Personal use versus commercial use requires different rules to mobilize self, goods and services. Each operator does not calculate the force of the transit vehicle or inertia while traveling. The operator does not review all the volumes of regulatory requirements to operate the vehicle. The operators each perform their task based on necessity. It is both for personal use or to perform a skill and receive compensation in return. Transit methods exist for both personal purposes and financial gain. Both methods of use have expectations for each operator to comply with to prevent bad outcomes from occuring while operating a transit vehicle. The operation of the transit vehicle is both technocratic and sociological.
Certain types of transportation are high-risk, high-consequence, complex, and engineered with great technical precision. The operation of these transit systems are high-risk because they are known to cause fatal injuries to persons. The Bureau of Labor Statistics cites that over 40% of fatal workplace injuries are from highway and transportation incidents. Other operations of vehicles are high-consequence, like the crash of an aircraft carrying hundreds of persons. While there is less likelihood of an aircraft incident than that of operating a vehicle, the consequences of each loss are different. The results of a personal loss or a commercial loss vary and provide risk managers something to ponder as they balance technocratic and sociological variables in their leadership.
The risks are real and complex because the operation of a mechanically engineered machine that transports people and goods is the result of consumer demand and the society in which people live and recreate. The sociological aspect of these machines comes with socio-economic implications and as status symbols. The machines which people choose to operate become more than a means of transit. Whether a person chooses to ride a horse, bicycle, moped, drive a luxury performance vehicle, or fly a private jet, the complex world comes with risks and the demand for goods and services increase year-over-year. These variables of risk require balance.
The reward is high for those persons who are able to accomplish the desired results to move goods, get services and mobilize themselves to achieve desired results. For example, driving to see friends or family, touring the world, and even launching into orbit are those desires of the human heart and mind. People choose to expose themselves to these risks because a person’s desire is greater than the risk danger. The enlightenment of the mind or the exhilaration of the experience is a greater reward than the risk exposure. Or, the gain to be received as a result of shipping goods and services with transit methods supersedes the risk exposure Humans have sought transit methods since history accounts for them in written records.
Transit Methods
Camels
Horses
Chariots
Canoes
Sailboats
Stagecoaches
Ricksha
Sleighs
Buggies
Trains
Automobiles
Aircraft
Rockets
Each of these travel modes have inherent risks. Animals can have unpredictable behaviors and even require special care by skilled experts like veterinarians. While mechanical transit vehicles are relatively reliable, these methods require specialized technical experts to maintain and keep optimal performance. There is also the means of storing, parking, and navigating these transit machines which requires additional thoughtful engineering. Roadways, tunnels, bridges and driveways are a common part of modern-day landscape because of the development of engineered systems to transport persons and services due to an insatiable desire for speed. Compared to animals as those once used for transport that needed rest and fodder to renourish. While other transit methods now require unique fuels, portages, slips, hangars, garages, and special parking to re-energize through the flow of electrons. Each transit vehicle method has specific storage and rest needs and each requires understanding of the vehicle and constant risk assessment. Which transit method is safe? What training is necessary for this transit method? Who can I trust to safely operate this transit method?
Transit Risks
At one time, when navigation occurred with an animal, risk evaluation was to assure navigable pathways, roadways free from boggy mud and weather conducive for travel. Even bands of thieves could overtake a person and steal belongings, people or even put a person to death. With the advent of additional transit modes, new risks emerged with combustible fuels to turn stored energy into propulsion methods. These new technologies were not without risks. For the transit vehicle to effectively mobilize cargo, goods and services to meet consumer’s demands, and ultimately, the desires of consumer’s hearts and minds. People rationalized that the gratification was greater than the risk exposure.
Traditional risk management techniques encouraged leaders to keep risk “as low as reasonably possible” or “as low as reasonably acceptable” through human organizational performance methods and prevent severe injuries and fatalities. While confronted with risk it is a menagerie of options which help lead persons towards decisions which mitigate bad outcomes. Humans utilized risk transfer methods and shared risk pools, engineering controls, administrative controls, and figurative hypotheses to evaluate what might happen and what might go unfavorably for the transportation of people, cargo, equipment, and services. People learned to reduce risk transit loss while maintaining a level of comfort with new transit methods.
With these risk evaluations, thoughtful considerations, and eventually rules became one of the primary methods to prevent bad outcomes. Further implementation of risk control came through rule enforcement and promulgation of rules by agencies in power. All with the interest to help prevent bad things from happening like loss of life and loss of property. Intentions were generally with positive intent to prevent things like persons dying and oceanic contamination or waterborne illness. Whatever the agency, each one now has volumes of texts with rules written to help control risks or otherwise help prevent bad outcomes.
The present world has become accustomed to transit risks which were created by people’s imaginative creativity. It is neither right nor wrong, it just is the developed world. And people are attempting to further technological ingenuities through ever-changing engineering feats. The transport of goods and services is not without risk. The easiest way to prevent bad things from happening due to risk is to eliminate that risk. Then, if transporting goods and services by engineered methods causes harm, negative environmental effects or even death, then the best risk control would be to stop using these transit methods. Eliminate the risk.
Consider:
If launching a solid rocket booster in 1986 killed seven people; then stop launching rockets.
If train operators fall asleep and cause catastrophic loss; then stop driving trains.
If aircraft were weaponized to kill thousands; then stop flying aircraft.
If automobiles cause thousands of deaths each year; then stop driving.
These risk control methods sound absurd because societies have become accustomed to comforts and luxuries. It has become normal for people to chose to expose themselves to the risk of transit because the desires of the heart and mind are greater than the risks. To completely remove risks from the world which humans have created would require complete alteration of societies, economies, and modernity of human civilization. People would have to reengineer transit and the movement of goods and services around the world. To eliminate the risks of transit methods requires innovation.
Iterative Steps
With change, smaller, incremental improvements is an appropriate strategy. Completely changing the world generally will not happen immediately. The demands of consumers and the commercial lines of business adjust based on those demands. With these demands, the risk manager must lead with balance. Transit methods will always be a necessity to gratify the wants and needs of a community, nation or the globe, but consider the risk exposures of these transit methods and innovate something better. Do not just manage risk, rather, lead through the risk with better innovations that are safer and prevent losses. Even small, iterative steps can have compounding effects. Balance the engineering, technocratic, and sociological to achieve the best results for humanity and the world.
