Safety Management Systems (SMS) helps managers better monitor and understand the safety performance of their organisation. Increasingly prevalent in the past two decades, SMS provide a rigorous framework for analysing hazards and controlling risks.

This report reviews the history and the workings of SMS and addresses the role of the regulator in an SMS environment. It discusses how to overcome obstacles to SMS implementation, introduces resilience engineering as a way to measure the effectiveness of SMS and finally examines how accident investigations can help address deficiencies in the SMS. Many of the concepts and notions brought forward in this report apply equally to all modes of transport as well as any industry that operates with inherent hazards that can lead to safety risks.