Chapter 4.1-4.

4
How to measure risk

Stein Haugen
Department of Marin Technology
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
NO 7491 Trondheim, Norway

Email: stein.haugen@ntnu.no

29.01.2018
1
 Topic of lecture

• How do we measure risk?

• Different consequence dimensions require different
measures:
• Life and health
• Environment
• Economical
• Mainly based on Chapter 4.1-4.4 in Rausand: Risk
Assessment (risk to life and health)
• Supplementary material on environmental risk and
economical risk

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 Risk vs Safety Performance

• Risk Indicator: A parameter that is estimated based

on risk analysis models and by using generic and
other available data. A risk indicator presents our
knowledge and belief about a specific aspect of the
risk of a future activity or a future system operation.

• Safety performance indicator: A parameter that is

estimated based on experience data from a specific
installation or an activity. A safety performance
indicator therefore tells us what has happened.

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 Measuring Risk
• Risk is measured indirectly in different
stages in the accidental event sequence:
• Hazardous event frequency Frequency
• Frequency of red-light violations for trains measures, not
(SPAD – Signal Passed At Danger) risk measures
• Gas leaks on offshore installations
• Accident frequency
• e.g. the frequency of aircraft crashes caused by
ATM
• Statistically expected consequences
• Direct measures, e.g. injuries or fatalities,
damage cost
• Indirect measures, e.g. loss of main safety
functions

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 Risk to people: Individual vs Group risk

• Individual risk
• The risk that an individual person is exposed to during a
specific time period (usually, one year).
• Usually addressed in terms of a hypothetical or statistical
person (most exposed, average)
• Group risk
• The risk experienced by a group of people. When common
citizens are exposed, the group risk is often called societal
risk.
• The group risk is a combination of individual risk levels and
the number of people being exposed.

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 Measuring risk to life and health
• Individual Risk Per Annum (IRPA) F
• Potential Equivalent Fatality (PEF) F+I
• Localized Individual Risk (LIRA) F
• Risk Contour Plots F
• Reduction in Life Expectancy (RLE) F
• Lost-Time Injuries (LTI) I (+F)
• Lost Workdays Frequency (LWF) I (+F)
• Potential Loss of Life (PLL) F F (cumulative frequency), Freq. of
accident with 1 or more fatalities, 2 or

• Fatal Accident Rate (FAR) F more fatalities, etc.

•
10^-2
Deaths Per Million (DPM) F 10^-3
RLE = num. of years "lost" due to an accident

•
10^-4
FN Curves PEF = converison factors from injury to fatalities
F = frequency of accidents with N or more fatalities
F N - number of
1 2 5 fatalities per
FAR = (PLL/Expose hours) * 10^8 accident
IRPA = PLL/num of people exposed
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DPM = IRPA * 10^6
F=Fatalities I=Injuries
 Frequency F of acc. Num. of
Fatalities
per year W/N or more fatalities per
fatalities year
1 1*10^-2 412*10^-2 1*1*10^-2 = 1*10^-2
2 3*10^-2 2*3*10^-2=6*10^-2

Potential Loss of Life (PLL) 5 1*10^-3

2*10^-4
312*10^-2
12*10^-3 5*1*10^-3=5^10^-3
2*10^-4 10*2*10^-4=2*10^-3
10

• PLL = Expected number of fatalities within a

PLL = 7*7*10^-2 =
0'077

speified population or within an area during a

specified period of time (usually a year)

• PLL is a measure of the group risk to personnel

• Example: For the Norwegian railways, PLL=11

• Established by considering historical average over a
period of 20 years

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 Potential Equivalent Fatality (PEF)

• Looking at fatalities does not necessarily describe

risk adequately
• Injuries?
• Assuming that an injury is equivalent to a certain
fraction of a fatality:
• E.g. Permanent Injury = 0.1 fatality
• Minor Injury = 0.01 fatality

• Not a separate risk metric as such, but ban be used

in combination with e.g. PLL, IRPAa and others

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 Individual Risk Per Annum (IRPAa)
• The probability that an individual will be killed
due to a set of hazards a during one year

• Common to calculate risk for a group and then

divide by number of people in the group:
• AIR – Average Individual Risk
• GIR – Group Individual Risk

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 Deaths per Million (DPM)

• Sometimes used as a safety performance indicator

𝑃𝐿𝐿∗
• 𝐷𝑃𝑀∗ = ∙ 106
𝑛𝑜 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑑

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11 (From Reducing Risks, Protecting People, HSE 2001)
 Localized Individual Risk (LIRA)

• The probability that an average unprotected person,

permanently present at a specified location, is killed
in a period of one year due to an accident at a
hazardous installation

LIRA( x, y )   i  Pr( fatality ( x, y ) | Ai )

i
• LIRA may be seen as an expression of the risk in a
location
• LIRA is also called LSIR (Location-Specific
Individual Risk) and IRI (Inidividual Risk Index)

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 Risk Contour Plots / Iso-risk contours

• Risk contours are typically used to illustrate the risk

that people in areas inside or surrounding a plant are
exposed to
• LIRA is calculated for a large number of points
• LIRA is plotted on a drawing/map
• Risk contours are drawn through points with same LIRA, e.g.
LIRA=10-5 per year
• Used in land-use planning

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 Risk contours

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15
 Reduction in Life Expectancy (RLE)

• RLE takes into account not just whether people are

killed but also how long they statistically could have
been expected to live had they survived

𝑅𝐿𝐸𝑡 = 𝑡0 − 𝑡

• Need to consider the individuals in the group

exposed to risk to calculate RLE for a group

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 Lost-time injury (LTI) rate

• LTI rate (frequency)

The number of lost-time injuries and fatal
accidents per million (106) working hours.
𝑛𝐿𝑇𝐼
𝐿𝑇𝐼𝐹 ∗ = ∙ 1 ∙ 106
𝐻𝑤
where
nLTI – No of Lost Time Injuries
HW – No of hours worked

• Other exposure scales are also used, e.g. 2·105

• LTIF does not distinguish between fatalities and

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a broken finger.
 Lost Workdays Frequency

• Takes into account the seriousness of the accident

• The number of lost workdays per million (106)
working hours. Lost time Injury Rate (LTI) = (Num. of injuies/Num. of hours worked)*10^6

Lost Workdays Frequency (LWF) = (Num. of lost workages/Num. of hours

𝑛𝐿𝑊𝐷
𝐿𝑊𝐹 ∗ = ∙ 1 ∙ 106
worked)*10^6

𝐻𝑤 FAR = (Num. of fatalities/Num. of hours worked)*10^8

where 2*10^5 typical value for LTI 1-25

2*10^5 - one working year = 2000hours
100 working years
nLWD – No of Lost Working Days due to LTIs
HW – No of hours worked

• Other exposure scales are also used, e.g. 2·105

• Fatalities/100% disabilities sometimes counted as
7500 workdays (other values are also used)
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 Heinrich’s triangle, pyramid or iceberg

Generalisation from working accidents to

19 major accidents is not possible
 Fatal Accident Rate (FAR)

• FAR = Expected number of fatalities per 100

million (108) exposed hours
PLL 8
FAR   10
HW

• 108 hours is approximately 1000 “work-lives”

(or 50 000 man-years)
• FAR is the expected number of fatalities among
1000 workers working under the same conditions
for their whole life
• Mainly used as a measure of risk in employment
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 FAR values in Nordic countries (1980-89)
Industry FAR-value

Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting 6.1

Raw material extraction (mining) 10.5

Industry, manufacturing 2.0

Electric, gas, and water supply 5.0

Building and construction 5.0

Trade, restaurant and hotel business 1.1

Transport, post and telecommunication 3.5

Banking and insurance 0.7

Private and public services, defense, etc. 0.6

Total 2.0

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 FAR in transport industry

• Transport sector sometimes uses transport work as

an exposure measure rather than working hours to
reflect risk for passengers
• Aviation industry:
𝑛𝑜 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 − 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠
𝐹𝐴𝑅𝑎 = ∙ 10−5
𝑛𝑜. 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠
or
𝑛𝑜 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 − 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠
𝐹𝐴𝑅𝑎 = ∙ 10−5
𝑛𝑜. 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑓𝑡 𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑠

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 Area FAR

• An expression of the risk associated with spending one whole

year in the same area (based on LIRA=IRI)
• Calculated as a FAR value:
IRI i
FARArea ,i  108
8760

where IRIi is the Individual Risk Index for area i (corresponds to

LIRA for area i) and 8760 is the number of hours in a whole year

• Quite commonly used in the offshore industy

• Typical values for high risk areas may be FARArea = 20-30

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 FN curve Risk

Cumulative Frequency, F
acceptance
limit

Risk curve

Consequence, N

• F = Cumulative frequency (Frequency of

“exceedance”)
• N = Measure of the consequence (usually number of
fatalities per accident)
• Log-scale on both axes is normally used
• FN-curve is always flat or falling
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25
 Risk matrix

• A tabular illustration of the frequency and severity of

hazardous events or accident scenarios
• Each event/scenario classified and plotted in matrix
1 2 3 4 5

Negligible Minor Serious 1-2 fatalities >2 fatalities

damage damage damage
5 >1/month 25
8 9 10
(5*5)

4
1/month – 20
8 9
1/year (5*4)

1/year – 7 8
3
1/10 year
1/10 year –
2 4
1/100 year
< 1/100
1
year

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 Risk Matrix
• No standard for size of matrix, classes in matrix,
labelling etc
• Most common: 4-6 classes
• Classification of frequencies
• Typically an order of magnitude between classes
• Classification of consequences
• Depends on type of consequence, varies much
• Risk Index
• Log(R) = log(C) + log(P)
(Sometimes log(C)·log(P) is used)
• Different matrices for different consequences
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 Risk matrix -  and 

• Easy to use
• Easy to understand
• Commonly used
• Good basis for discussion
• Relative ranking of hazards

• Difficult to compare matrixes

• One hazard at a time – no total risk
• No additional identification of hazards/scenarios

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 Loss of Main Safety Functions
• Introduced in Norwegian offshore regulations in 1981
• Key functions required to be intact to maintain safety
are defined
• Risk is expressed in terms of the annual frequency of
loss (impairment) of these Main Safety Functions
• Main Safety Functions:
• Escape Ways
• Prevention of Escalation
• Shelter Area/Evacuation Means
• Emergency Rooms/Central Control Room
• Main Structure

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 Environmental risk measures

• Risk measures used in the offshore industry:

• Frequency of oil spills of different size
• <10 tons, 10-100 tons, 100-1.000 tons, 1.000-10.000 tons,
>10.000 tons
• Frequency of extent of damage to vulnerable resources, e.g.
Coastline
• No damage to coastline, <1km affected, 1-5 km affected, 5-
50km affected, >50km affected
• Frequency of time to recovery of environment
• Recovery within 1 month, within 1 month to 1 year, 1-3 years,
3-10 years, >10 years

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 Economical/Financial risk

• Risk is directly measured in terms of statistically expected annual

cost:
C R   i  ci
i
where
i – frequency of accident Ai
Ci – average expected cost if accident Ai occurs

ci   i  P( sij | Ai )  c( sij )
j
where
sij – scenario j that follows on from Ai
c(sij) – cost if sij occurs

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