Occupational safety

NS reports every workplace accident that occurs, regardless of whether they involve a physical injury. We express the number of accidents as the Total Recordable Rate (TRR): the total number of workplace accidents per million hours worked. The TRR for 2024 was 4.6 (2023: 4.9). The TRR figure does not include incidents of aggression towards employees. 
NS makes a distinction between occupational safety and social safety. The Occupational Safety domain includes the physical working conditions that can result in a workplace accident and the preventive measures to be taken to prevent recurrence. Social Safety is linked to incidents involving aggression (aggression falls under psychosocial workload). Here, a distinction is made between unsafe situations caused by external factors (public domain) and unsafe situations within NS (internal domain) related to psychosocial workload.

In 2023, NS conducted a risk assessment and evaluation (RAE) of psychosocial workload. This is a major underlying cause of workplace accidents. In 2024, NS carried out a review of the RAE method used. We have set out points for improvement identified in this review, which will be applied when the RAE into psychosocial workload is conducted again in 2025. The 2025 RAE will specifically look at the causes of workplace accidents. A focus on priority risks was introduced in 2024 and will be used in reporting.

Within NS, we paid specific attention to preventing trips and falls last year by providing clear information on this issue and making it a topic of discussion within the organisation. The second half of 2024 saw a drop in the number of tripping accidents.