Gianni Chiari, a international expert in Safety and Risk Assessment in the field of Amusement Rides and Parks give us an easy explaination.

 

Among all topics, when speaking of Safety in the field of Amusement Rides, perhaps the most misunderstood one is indeed the Risk Assessment. Yet this is really the most important tool to analyze and enforce the safety in a ride, especially when done with sufficient knowledge of technical standards and experience.

 

We have asked Gianni Chiari, an international expert in this field, to explain us in simple words what a Risk Assessment is.

Gianni Chiari started his experience in the field of Amusement  Rides in 1985, starting his collaboration with ANCASVI, the Italian association of Amusement Rides manufacturer, taking care of the project to create a European standard in this field. He took care of this project up to now, after the issue of EN 13814 first edition and now with the new edition ready to be issued. After this he started the collaboration with International Standardization Organization (ISO) to get to an international standard and also with ASTM.

 

Meanwhile he worked for several manufacturer of amusement rides to increase the quality of the documentation supplied like manuals of use and maintenance and risk assessment. He in considered in Italy, Europe and abroad  one of the biggest expert in Safety in this field and for sure among the ones with longer experience.

 

 

A RISK, also called HAZARD, is the compound of to aspects:

-        the HARM, that is a damage a person can suffer

-        the PROBABILITY that this harm can happen

 

The bigger the probability and the bigger the harm, the bigger the Risk.

 

So a Risk Assessment is the search for possible risks (the limit is only our knowledge and experience) and the analysis of the harm and probability of all these risks.

 

This is done in a so-called “qualitative” way, that means we do not take out numbers and do not make calculations. As a matter of fact, the most important part of a Risk Assessment if the ability to imagine all possible risks that can occur on a ride.

Very often a risk found by one is not seen by another; this happens because everybody has his own point of view.

 

That’s why a Risk Assessment must be done with enough technical support or experience in order to create something that can really be used as a tool to prevent accidents and harms.

 

The final part of a Risk Assessment is the HANDLING of the risks so found; every risk can be reduced, acting directly on the risk or indirectly, up to a point where the final risk that is remained, the so-called “residual risk” is acceptable.

 

All this is written in a document, that so will be the evidence of the effort done to find, analyze and handle all possible risks.

 

A ride where all possible risks have been identified and handled up to be acceptable, is considered a “safe ride”.

 

See the video here above with the direct interview with Gianni Chiari