VIA Rail contracts with KMI for safety and risk management software
Written by jrood
VIA Rail Canada has selected KMI, a software firm based in Oakville, Ont., to upgrade the corporation's environmental and safety management systems. The C$270,000 contract, which is entirely funded by the Government of Canada's Economic Action Plan, will provide VIA with KMI's integrated software to centralize environment, health and safety data collection, event reporting and analysis throughout the corporation's coast-to-coast network. KMI's Incident Management, Corrective Action, and Reporting & Dashboard systems will be implemented at all VIA locations across Canada by the end of the year.
VIA became one of the
first railways in Canada to implement an integrated safety management system in
2001, and has continually refined and expanded the system since then.
Jean Tierney, VIA’s senior
director, safety, security and risk management said that "the new software
suite will centralize and streamline the process for analyzing environmental,
health and safety data. It will also provide managers real time statistical
performance data for trend and risk analysis, from all sites across Canada,
rolled up to the corporate level. The KMI software suite gives us the enhanced functionality
and flexibility we need to make the entire system more efficient and
cost-effective."
The system upgrade is
part of the Government of Canada’s unprecedented C$923-million capital
investment to modernize passenger rail infrastructure, equipment and
technology. "Safety is a top priority for our government," said the Honorable
Rob Merrifield, Canada’s Minister of State (Transport). "This investment
leverages the best possible information technology to safeguard employees,
customers and communities served by passenger rail across the country."
Matt Airhart, director of business
development for KMI, added: "Our fully configurable, multilingual and Web-based
system will provide VIA Rail employees an easy to use tool for reporting
hazards and incidents while tracking investigations and corrective actions. The
ability for management to quickly access real-time performance statistics
across all regions of Canada and execute action plans targeting risk throughout
the organization will lead to significant safety improvements and cost savings."
