KiwiRail's Journey to Enhanced Safety

KiwiRail, one of New Zealand’s largest transport and logistics providers, operates a network of 11 container terminals where heavy machinery and ground personnel work in close proximity. Ensuring the safety of employees in these high-risk environments has always been a top priority.

Historically, despite robust safety protocols and training, the risk of near misses and potential accidents remained a concern. Operators of container handling equipment (CHE) often struggled with visibility constraints, and ground personnel faced challenges in maintaining safe distances from moving machinery.

To address these challenges, KiwiRail and Sonasafe worked together to develop an innovative solution that aligned with their safety objectives. Upon installation, SonaSafe quickly identified that safety breaches across the business were far more prevalent than initially expected, with some sites experiencing hundreds of breaches daily. This revelation prompted KiwiRail to take immediate action.

Utilizing the SonaSafe incident dashboard, KiwiRail gained valuable insights into on-ground behaviours, traffic flow pinch points, and discrepancies between "work as imagined" and "work as done." Collaborating closely with their teams, they comprehensively revised their traffic management plans. Since implementation, the results have been remarkable. Safety breaches have significantly declined, with some shifts achieving zero alerts.

The impact has been so profound that staff now celebrate with high-fives when a shift ends without any breaches.

In their commitment to proactive safety measures, any breach of an exclusion zone is immediately reported via radio. Management reviews all incidents from the previous day at the start of each day, (95% of events are categorised ahead of this meeting), helping management understand where their breaches are occurring and why.

Rob McMillan, Manager of Container Terminals for the North Island, observed a compelling example of behavioural change:

"We established a temporary site without activating SonaSafe. Remarkably, the team—comprising staff previously accustomed to SonaSafe-enabled environments—continued to observe exclusion zones diligently. This experience underscores the enduring influence of Sonasafe on our workforce's safety practices, highlighting that safety consciousness has become an ingrained aspect of our daily operations."

Over the past three years, SonaSafe has driven a sustained shift in workplace safety culture at KiwiRail. The company now integrates real-time reporting across all its terminals, ensuring that safety insights are shared across the business to maintain and enhance best practices.