This study proposes a model for railway safety assessment with which the safety of whole railway system can be evaluated. The purpose of the assessment model is to generate safety indicators which quantitatively represent the degree of railway safety. Safety indicators were proposed as three indicators according to their functions; accident indicators, safety management indicators, and safety culture indicators. This paper describes the first result on the safety target which will be a key starting point toward the development of safety assessment model. It is recommended that the safety target to be composed of several sub-targets are apportioned to constituent components. It is concluded that the classification of safety target has influence on deciding components or attributes that constitute each sub-indicators; accident indicators, safety management indicators, and safety culture indicators. Based on this study, a railway safety assessment model will be developed in the following study.