Amey has been scooped the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) Initiative of the Year Award for its 'ThinkSafe' project.

The scheme saw Amey develop three innovative safety toolkits used to gather non-traditional safety metrics, to drive Amey's ‘Target Zero’ (zero Lost Time Injury Incident Rate by 2021) ambitions.

Amey accepted the award, part of RoSPA's specialist ‘Inspiration Awards' category, at a virtual ceremony on 3 September. The coveted prize benchmarks 'fascinating, industry leading, innovative solutions to health and safety management'.

ThinkSafe, developed by Amey Consulting and rolled out in Amey's rail business, focuses on psychological and human factor conditions that may contribute to accidents or incidents, utilising a ‘bottom-up’ approach to understand the risk of everyday activities. The project came out of a need to address the pitfalls of using root cause analysis, audits and accident data to understand risk and reduce accidents. Although useful, these approaches are considered somewhat reactive, therefore potentially posing a safety risk.


ThinkSafe is a series of toolkits which provide high quality data, beyond traditional safety metrics and examine the psychological and human factor variables associated with safety; such as workload, job pressure and safety climate. The toolkits developed following a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with Leeds Beckett University’s ‘Psychology Applied to Safety & Health’ research team.

Robert Doyle, HSEQ Director, Consulting, Amey said: "We are incredibly proud that ThinkSafe has been awarded the RoSPA Health and Safety Initiative of the year 2020. This innovative approach has been designed inhouse to support our ongoing zero harm philosophy - by focusing on human and psychological factors which can positively or negatively impact on the safety and wellbeing of our workforce. This accolade recognises our ongoing commitment to pushing the boundaries and ongoing improvement against our health, safety and wellbeing agenda."