Case study: How Emirates Transport is promoting security and safety in its services as a public transport provider

What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2014 Annual Report Emirates Transport identified a range of material issues, such as supporting government compliance and guidelines, excellence and leadership in services and processes, investment and strengthening of the organization’s financial position. Among these, ensuring security and safety in its services stands out as the top material issue for Emirates Transport as a public transport provider.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The organization should identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups Emirates Transport engages with:

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

At Emirates Transport, the key to success is its strong relationship and care for its stakeholders. These are those individuals or organizations that Emirates Transport engages for the purposes of its business operations, services and products. These include Emirates Transport’s clients, suppliers, strategic partners, employees, competitors, federal and local government organizations, regional and global entities and the community within which Emirates Transport operates. All across Emirates Transport’s operations and systems, stakeholder expectations are identified, reviewed and addressed with an objective to improve overall performance and achieve excellence. Effective and efficient engagement tools are in place within Emirates Transport which enables smooth and fruitful engagement and continuous communication with its stakeholders.

Emirates Transport engages with its customers through informal daily routine engagement, the call centre for suggestions and complaints, Satisfaction Surveys, meetings, workshops and conferences, with its suppliers through vendor assessments, health & safety trainings, contracts, bids and procurements, with its employees through Satisfaction Surveys, personal meetings, management discussion forums, training programmes, complaints and grievance systems and annual performance appraisals and with its partners through general meetings, discussion forums, exchange of data and information and the Annual Gala.

Emirates Transport engages with federal and local governments through Memorandums of Understanding, laws and policies, meetings and conferences and standards compliance, with regional and global entities through seminars and meetings, international standards, global events and best practice exchange, with competitors through industry forums, workshops and meetings, reports and periodicals and with local communities through volunteer activities, free services and business support, recycling activities, awareness campaigns, social and cultural events, philanthropic activities and specialist exhibitions.

What actions were taken by Emirates Transport to promote security and safety in its services as a public transport provider?

In its 2014 Annual Report Emirates Transport set the following targets for promoting security and safety in its services as a public transport provider, based on its approach to materiality – on taking action on what matters, where it matters:

• Enhancing children’s safety in school transport

In cooperation with state regulatory and legislative authorities and in support of safety standards across transport means, particularly school transport means, the Executive Committee at Abu Dhabi School Transport was engaged to launch the specifications and requirements of a smart systems package for child protection within the school transport system, as part of the community project entitled “Children’s Safety in School Transport”, launched in support of HH Lt General Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, in cooperation and coordination with the Abu Dhabi Police GHQ, Abu Dhabi Department of Transport and Abu Dhabi Education Council. During 2014, Emirates Transport was awarded an approval by the Abu Dhabi Environment, Health & Safety Centre.

• Promoting senior management engagement

The road traffic environment, health and safety (HSE) system enjoys the senior management’s full support, through the provision of different kinds of resources, with periodical reviews of the occupational HSE system. The senior management’s engagement is reflected in the formation of the Executive Safety Audit Committee for school transport and business centres in July 2014, chaired by the Director General and with the membership of a number of Emirates Transport executive managers. The committee convenes on a monthly basis, to discuss all issues related to the HSE system (accidents reports, audit, inspection, etc.), to allow for decisions to be taken regarding the development of policies and different work manuals, for corrective steps to be established and resources provided. The total number of recommendations offered by the committee during its periodical meetings reached 140 recommendations, with an 87% rate of completion as of the beginning of 2015. The majority of these focused on following up on inspection and audit reports, the development of business actions, training, field control and accidents investigation. The major results of these recommendations and follow-up were represented in the decline in the rate of medium-level and major traffic accidents caused by Emirates Transport drivers by 39% during Q2014/4, compared to the same period in 2013.

• Organizing events and activities in different health and safety areas

The 3^rd session of the Occupational Health & Safety Month was organized under the logo “Your Safety our Success Element”, during which 250 events and activities in different health and safety areas were organized, in addition to medical examinations and blood donation campaigns. Two evacuation drills were organized across school buses and at main offices, in coordination with the Civil Defence forces. The total number of employees participating was 15,000, while participation from outside Emirates Transport reached 20,000. More than 90 government departments participated in the Safety Month activities, indicating its major impact on different concerned parties.

• Offering programmes and courses on safety issues

In support of its strategic vision and objectives, Emirates Transport offers different programmes and courses regarding safety issues in coordination with the School Transport Department. Educational programmes are designed to enhance students’, bus drivers’ and supervisors’ awareness. These programmes are considered part of Emirates Transport’s general responsibility practices, covering both employees and stakeholders. Organized lectures highlight the importance of safety guides across school buses, with the Ten Golden Rules, designed to protect students while leaving buses, particularly young children. Practical and theoretical lectures focus on safety issues in terms of the protection of bus seats and the maintenance of buses’ general conditions.

• Encouraging creativity and innovation in traffic safety methods through the Traffic & Education Award

The Emirates Transport Traffic & Education Award has been updated on a regular basis until its 2015-2014 session, during which two new classes were added, addressing creativity and innovation in traffic safety and safety person of the year, with the door open to all community groups to participate in, along with award activities. Online participation is currently available. The award aims to encourage creativity and innovation in traffic safety methods, through constructive competition among schools and other beneficiaries, in support of community welfare, and the establishment of traffic safety terms and values between students, parents and community members.

• Fostering employee participation

The League of Innovators was launched in 2014. The first season was allocated to applicable safety in school transport, during which the Judging Committee received 155 ideas.

• Promoting Emirates Transport’s safety culture through periodical and non-periodical publications

Emirates Transport promotes its safety culture among all concerned parties through Safety Periodical Magazine, which is geared towards school students and of which four issues were published during 2014, in addition to a special manual on safety in school transport, as well as the publication/distribution of many educational posters on safety and the environment.

• Maintaining the highest level of safety through inspection visits by senior management and safety teams

To maintain the highest level of safety, the senior management and safety teams carried out a number of inspection visits during 2014. The Director General, accompanied by a group of senior management officials and safety/operation staff, conducted visits across a group of business centres and School Transport Department branches. Visits focused on the methods to be followed in order to achieve the highest standards and objectives in students’ safety, to improve and enhance institutional reputation by maintaining full compliance with school transport to limit and control the number of accidents. Subsequent reports indicate some gaps for which a detailed action plan is required to discuss the following points:

• Follow up for the implementation of health and safety systems and instructions.
• Development of new models to mitigate accidents among centres and individuals.
• Develop safety field control systems across all transport centres.
• Develop a system to measure training effectiveness and impact on drivers.
• Attach audit reports with accident reports, with development of effective solutions for each type of accident.

Which GRI indicators/Standards have been addressed?

The GRI indicators/Standards addressed in this case are:

1) G4-PR1: Percentage of significant product and service categories for which health and safety impacts are assessed for improvement – the updated GRI Standard is: Disclosure 416-1 Assessment of the health and safety impacts of product and service categories

2) G4-PR2: Total number of incidents of non-compliance with regulations and voluntary codes concerning the health and safety impacts of products and services during their life cycle, by type of outcomes – the updated GRI Standard is: Disclosure 416-2 Incidents of non-compliance concerning the health and safety impacts of products and services

References:

1) This case study is based on published information by Emirates Transport, located at the links below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original, please revert to the following links:

http://database.globalreporting.org/

https://www.et.gov.ae/Pages/OurServices/SchoolTransports/Publicschools.aspx (June 2016)

2) http://www.fbrh.co.uk/en/global-reporting-initiative-gri-g4-guidelines-download-page

3) https://g4.globalreporting.org/Pages/default.aspx

4) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

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