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Building a Safety CultureWe are committed to a continued focus on excellence in all of our safety practices and results, at all locations. We strive to ingrain safety practices into our thoughts and actions at every level of the company.REACHING for World-Class Safety at Veolia Transportation At Veolia, caring for the safety of our employees and the passengers we serve, is the most important thing that we do every day. Safety is our moral, ethical and legal obligation and is at the core of everything that we do. We are relentless in our ongoing pursuit of World-Class Safety and are committed to continuing to elevate our performance. Many initiatives reinforce our commitment to safety:
These initiatives help build a culture of safety, where every employee takes personal responsibility for safety, every minute. World-Class Safety: Every Day While we are very proud of our safety efforts and programs, we never relent on our focus. We are committed to a continued focus on excellence in all of our safety practices and results, at all locations. We strive to ingrain safety practices into our thoughts and actions at every level of the company. We reinforce to our managers and supervisors that to achieve the results we are committed to, our safety consciousness must be fully integrated into daily business practices, processes and decisions, and each employee must consider safe operations their personal responsibility. Our proprietary Operator Development Training Program (ODP), which leads the industry, includes 40 hours of classroom training and 80 hours of behind-the-wheel training standardizes the training off all Veolia drivers. Each operator spends 40 hours in the classroom, 10 hours in a closed course and 70 hours behind the wheel. There are 33 performance standards and skills that vehicle operators must meet. Our emphasis is on modeling sound behaviors, and there is extensive practice and coaching from skilled, dedicated safety trainers at each location. Our Operator Development Program was designed to be adapted to include the training requirements of our Transit Authority clients. Facilitated by a well-trained Safety Manager, the ODP classroom training uses 22 state-of-the-art DVDs that explicitly train operators in every aspect of safe driving. Rather than lectures, these are participatory, engaging sessions that include extensive materials for trainers (discussion guides, facilitators guides, etc), a detailed instructor’s manual and operator workbooks for practice and comprehension. Quizzes and tests are used to document performance and learning, and there is a thorough final driving evaluation. DriveCam is in nearly all of our vehicles, and is rigorously used to train and coach operators. This technology video tapes any situation that passes a threshold of G-force, such as sudden stops, swerves, impact, etc. We use DriveCam video technology and tapes to identify and correct unsafe driving behaviors. These tapes, plus many other types of observation, are the basis of how we coach drivers to make any needed changes. Our major safety initiative, 300:29:1, focuses employee attention on identifying and eliminating the small, unsafe acts that can accumulate and can lead to an accident. This is based on a long-held safety principle that preventing minor unsafe acts, will in turn reduce the number of accidents. We have a robust communication plan surrounding this concept and several employee programs in place to keep this concept at the forefront of everyone’s mind. To further assure continuous improvement in our safety performance, our national safety audit program measures compliance with Federal, State and Local requirements, OSHA standards and adherence to Veolia’s standards. All locations are audited annually. Audits are followed by detailed action plans for which managers are held accountable. We believe in the old adage that you can’t manage what you don’t measure. We rigorously measure safety performance data at all our locations. We have a nationwide, shared database called “WebRisk” in which all our locations record all accident and injury data following prescribed, consistent procedures. This lets us analyze our performance and progress for individual locations, regions and nationwide, so we can tightly monitor our performance, compare performance of comparable locations, and develop improvement plans where needed. This data also enables us to create actionable “Dashboards” enabling each location to see its performance versus its peers. Our employees have also developed an innovative engagement and incentive program called DRIVE. At each location, the DRIVE Team spots safety issues and proposes solutions, using the member’s collective expertise to prevent accidents and injuries. The team also engages employees in a variety of motivational programs. All employees win prizes based on the improvement in safety performance at their location. The DRIVE program helps build a culture of safety through individual and group accountability. In sum, safety is our most deeply held value and top priority. We teach our managers and supervisors that achieving “world-class safety” status is dependent upon building a culture where every employee considers safe practices a priority. George Elsmore
on Rail Safety
I recently joined Veolia Transportation from a leadership position I held for 15 years in the California Public Utilities Commission. As the State’s Railroad Safety Program Manager, I supervised a team of 48 federally certified rail safety inspectors in the nation’s largest state rail safety program. Veolia Transport is a leading operator of rail networks around the world, transporting 315 million passengers a year on commuter, regional and long distance trains. I joined the company because it is committed to making its rail networks the safest in the world, and I want to play a leadership role in helping the North American Rail Group accomplish this goal. My focus is to ensure the rail side of Veolia Transportation continues to be a leader in world-class rail transportation services by promoting a strong culture of safety. The development of our corporate rail System Safety Program Plan will add to our local System Safety Program Plans. These plans ensure the necessary framework is in place to further develop and implement strong safety initiatives focused on even more rigorous standards and measures, effective training, and programs for employee engagement. I am also enhancing our already strong audit program, through which we inspect all of our rail operations, implementing changes and upgrades wherever necessary. Audits provide clear overviews of our operations, help us to benchmark achievements and improve performance. We’re already meeting or exceeding the FRA requirements for Critical Operating Rules Tests; a formalized rail industry technique for evaluating an engineer or conductor’s understanding of the meaning and application in action of rail operating rules. We will continue to place a great deal of focus on these important evaluations and working with our people to remedy any issues that are identified. We have in place a very effective information exchange between the U.S. and our rail operations around the world. This provides us with a wealth of expertise from operations far more complex than many of our U.S. operations. Having access to a highly experienced network of rail experts from all over the world is a tremendous asset. I am delighted to have joined a team of highly skilled and dedicated professionals and look forward to what I can contribute to ensure that Veolia Transportation’s rail safety program sets the standard for the industry. 
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