New Chair established in transport risk management

Joint Lloyd's Register and Imperial College London Press Release

For immediate release
20 November 2003

Imperial College London and Lloyd's Register, the independent safety assurance and risk management organisation, today announce the establishment of a new Lloyd's Register Chair in Transport Risk Management at Imperial College. The Chair is located in the Centre for Transport Studies in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and will be funded by Lloyd's Register initially for five years.

The first holder of the Chair will be Professor Andrew Evans, who will move to Imperial College on 1 January 2004. Professor Evans is at present Professor of Transport Safety in the sister Centre for Transport Studies at University College London, where he has been since 1991.

Andrew Evans is an economist and statistician. His safety interests have been in risk estimation, risk appraisal, the economics of safety, and safety regulation. He has worked particularly on economic and statistical analyses of train accidents, and has contributed to many of the debates on train accident risks and safety measures in the past decade. He has also worked on safety in other modes, including roads and aviation, and on inter-modal safety comparisons.

In addition to the new Chair, Lloyd's Register will fund a programme of related research in best practice in engineering risk management, with special reference to rail. This will include organisational, management and regulatory issues, as well as engineering practices and procedures. Some of this will build on work initiated 18 months ago, addressing best practice in the management of safety critical engineering assets, across a range of industry sectors including rail, oil and gas, power and the utilities.

Over the last three years, Lloyd's Register has begun to adapt and develop its considerable safety-related engineering skills, best known through its ship safety and classification work, and oil and gas verification activities, into other transport areas, starting with the rail sector.

David Moorhouse, Executive Chairman of Lloyd's Register, comments: "I am delighted to announce the establishment of this Chair at Imperial College London which I believe will have a major impact on transport risk management. It is a natural extension of our own research and development work in support of the industries we serve, and very much in line with our constitutional aim to enhance the safety of life and property.

"We are working to bring Lloyd's Register's considerable experience of improving safety, particularly in the marine and offshore sectors, to other areas. We are committed to working with all stakeholders in the rail industry to achieve an even safer future and this Chair will play a key role in examining the factors that influence the management of safety- and asset-related risks."

Professor John Polak, Head of the Centre for Transport Studies at Imperial College London comments: "We are delighted to be able to extend our collaboration with Lloyd's Register through the establishment of this Chair, which is the first of its kind in the UK. The area of transport risk management is one of enormous intellectual challenge and is also of great practical significance to the rail sector, and indeed the wider transport industry. This new Chair provides an exceptional opportunity for Imperial College to play a leading role in the development of the discipline and to shape its influence on engineering practice.

"Professor Evans is an outstanding scholar with a deep knowledge of the rail sector and it is a great pleasure to welcome him to Imperial College. We look forward with enthusiasm to working with him in developing these exciting opportunities"

-Ends-

For further information, please contact:
Judith H Moore
Imperial College London Press Office
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 6702
Mobile: +44 (0)7803 886 248
E-mail:j.h.moore@imperial.ac.uk

Notes to editor

Andrew Evans: biographical details

Andrew Evans' first degree was in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge, followed by a Diploma in Mathematical Statistics. His PhD from the University of Birmingham examined the effects of the original West Coast Main Line electrification, and he also has a MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.

Andrew has spent the majority of his career as an academic staff member of British Universities, though he had a four-year period as a Statistician in the Department of the Environment, and four years at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia. He has worked mainly in the field of transport, though not in transport safety until 1991, when he took up the post of Professor of Transport Safety at the University of London. The post was at the time joint between University College London and Imperial College, and funded by London Transport.

In his 13 years as Professor of Transport Safety, Andrew has specialised particularly in railway safety, and has carried out extensive research on railway accidents and railway safety. He has participated in many of the railway safety debates of the last decade, including those on automatic train protection, Mark 1 rolling stock, the train protection and warning system, collisions between trains and road vehicles, and the European Rail Traffic Management system.

He has had many public roles related to rail safety, including being Chairman of the Rail Safety Working Party of the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Transport Safety, and being advisor and expert witness at the Joint Inquiry into Train Protection Systems and at the Ladbroke Grove Accident Public Inquiry in 2000, and being a member of the Health and Safety Commission committee reviewing the obstruction of railway by road vehicles in 2001.

Andrew is married with three children, and lives in London.

About Lloyd's Register

Lloyd's Register is an independent risk management organisation. The Lloyd's Register Group works to help improve its clients' quality, safety, environmental and business performance throughout the world. Its expertise and activities cover shipping, railways, other land-based industries, and oil and gas.

Through its constitution, Lloyd's Register is directed 'to secure, for the benefit of the community, high technical standards of design, manufacture, construction, maintenance, operation, and performance, for the purpose of enhancing the safety of life and property both at sea and on land'.

Website: www.lr.org.

About Imperial College London

Consistently rated in the top three UK university institutions, Imperial College London is a world leading science-based university whose reputation for excellence in teaching and research attracts students (10,000) and staff (5,000) of the highest international quality.

Innovative research at the College explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and management and delivers practical solutions that enhance the quality of life and the environment - underpinned by a dynamic enterprise culture.

Website: www.imperial.ac.uk