Managing Risks of Extended Travel in the Mining Industry

TLDR – Key Points: Managing Extended Travel Risks in Mining

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• Long-distance travel, particularly on weekends, is a major safety risk in the mining industry.

• Many workers skip or overlook journey plans and safety protocols during such travel.

• Fatigue from extended drives can increase the likelihood of accidents.

• It's essential to assess how well travel risks are being managed.

• Organizations should explore best practices and pockets of excellence to improve safety.

• Regular reviews, communication, and training can help manage extended travel risks effectively.

Understanding the Risks of Extended Travel in Mining

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From a risk management perspective, probably one of the most highest risk that we have in the mining industry, is people travelling in their own vehicles for extended distances.

And I was thinking about, well, what are we doing to manage that risk and how well are we going with managing that risk?

So we talked about we’ve got journey plans and we declare and everything like that. But do we actually do that by the time we’ve had a big long week, we get to Friday lunch. I was like, yes, I can’t wait to get home.

Do we follow the protocols that we’ve set or is there a protocol in and of itself? I know of people that on a Friday will drive up to 8 to 10 hours to get back to their home location for a little bit of a weekend and then get up early on a Monday morning and drive back the same distance.

And I’m wondering how well are we going?

How well are you going in managing that risk?

What else can we do in relation to this?

And is there some pockets of excellence that we could learn from?