Industrial and fire safety

In order to ensure the Company’s industrial and fire safety:

  • the Safety First rule is observed, with safety placed above other performance indicators;
  • employees receive training and improve their skills and competencies in health and safety;
  • individual and collective responsibility for compliance with health and safety principles is nourished and promoted;
  • each employee is aware of their individual responsibility for compliance with health and safety principles;
  • health and safety risks are managed.

Industrial safety of hazardous facilities

The industrial safety management system of Russian Railways determines the key functions and responsibilities for ensuring industrial safety at all management levels. The industrial control structure covers all management levels and ensures control over compliance with industrial safety requirements at the Company’s hazardous production facilities.

Russian Railways operates 5,674 hazardous facilities, including 565 facilities of hazard class 3 and 5,109 facilities of hazard class 4. None of these facilities reported any accidents in 2022.

Fire safety

Russian Railways has a fire safety management system aligned with the Company’s “to-be” state. Various units within the Company follow a unified approach to fire safety thanks to the efforts of central and regional fire safety commissions. Fire prevention activities at the Company’s facilities and rolling stock, along with fire extinguishing in the traffic area, are the responsibility of the Departmental Security Service of the Railroad Transport.

Fire trains

Fire trains are classified as part of a single public system for emergency prevention and response and are engaged by the EMERCOM of Russia in order to extinguish fires across the country. Fire trains are designed for fire extinguishing and ensuring fire safety as part of response to emergencies with hazardous cargos at facilities of structural units of Russian Railways branches, at all types of rolling stock, and in railway infrastructure areas where possible. A total of 310 fire trains are on standby 24/7. The rolling stock of fire trains is updated as part of the Fire Safety project.

During 2022, fire trains responded to 79 fires at on-site facilities and rolling stock, 71 fires in railway infrastructure areas, 89 incidents at on-site facilities and rolling stock, and responded to further 263 incidents at the request of territorial fire and rescue units of the EMERCOM of Russia to assist in extinguishing fires at facilities that are not part of the railway transportation infrastructure and natural fires.