7.2 Memorandum of Understanding with the policy and judicial entities

Description

What does this measure refer to and what is its objective?

A MOU is a good way of defining and ensuring a clear understanding of each organization’s incident response roles and responsibilities with each of the external organisations who could be involved in the response to an incident.

Recommendations

Best practice and lessons learned

  • It is important to organize and agree an MOU before incidents occur as it could well prove difficult to achieve consensus during the stress of an incident response. It will then be able to do so without delay, thus reducing total incident response time and contributing to the quickest possible resumption of train circulation.
  • A typical MOU covers the following aspects in relation to on and off site incident response, to management and to off-site investigation:
    • Purpose;
    • Scope;
    • Definitions;
    • Legal framework and responsibilities;
    • Notification arrangements;
    • Site command, control, roles and relationships;
    • Site safety;
    • Site access control;
    • Securing services of specialists (doctors, morticians)
    • Incident site management;
    • Identification of operational safety aspects of the incident to enable risk mitigation;
    • Welfare on site;
    • Media management;
    • Investigation arrangements.

Warning points

Expected difficulties and issues you should pay attention to

A MOU needs to be prepared and signed off in advance, to ensure that when an incident occurs, each responder already knows which actions it is expected to take.

Observations

Other points that you should not forget

A MOU should define the agreed principles to be applied between the IM and an external agency; in order to minimize potential problems with the management of the response to an incident.

Study results

Data or other evidence supporting the measure's effectiveness

last update: 2014-09-17