Abstract. The paper presents the author’s concept of “three floors” of risk management in transport. This view on risk management stems from a triple interpretation of the concept of a system and from a process-oriented approach to interpreting the transport system. The title of the paper suggests a hierarchy of risk management, but this is not so obvious, and therefore it is better to speak of risk management at three levels of the transport system: 1. the level of system structure elements; 2. the level of processes realizing the system’s goals; 3. the level of system “behaviors”. In the concept presented here, risk is a “multidimensional” construct and concerns all negative transport effects (NTEs).
This includes, among others, risks of: loss of life (safety aspect), degradation of the natural environment, and the emergence of transport congestion.
1. INTRODUCTION
The main goal of managing transport systems is the safe, efficient, and economically justified execution of transport work processes, given the existing technical, organizational, and economic conditions, [1]. Transport safety is only one of the features of a transport system. This means that transport safety management is a quasi-optimization task; for if one assumes the maximization of the safety level as the goal, then the remaining components of the “transport quality” vector – efficiency and transport cost – are significant constraints. In turn, a fundamental issue in safety management is the assessment of all possible risks in the analyzed transport system.
The general goal of risk analysis in transport is to develop rational foundations for making decisions regarding the avoidance of losses that may occur at any level of transport management and at any place in a specific transport system, [2]. Such decisions constitute a component of the risk management process.
The first stage of this process is risk analysis, in which the magnitude of the risk is estimated. Risk analysis in transport systems is a structural process of identifying both the probabilities and the magnitude (scope) of losses caused in the system and/or its environment, whereby physical damages suffered by the elements of the system structure (people, infrastructure, means of transport) and/or the environment (the surroundings) are classified as specific losses. (…)
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Source: Logistyka Magazine 2/2010