Inadequate consideration of human factors has been found to be a leading cause of unwanted consequences associated with control room systems. To guard against these events, many safety regulators have mandated that human factors are to be addressed as part of safety management, with Australian railways receiving the national mandate in January 2013. At the moment, as is the case in many parts of the world, Australian railways do not have their own dedicated standard or guide on how to integrate human factors. Fortunately, understanding of human factors in work systems has advanced significantly since the 1980s and a growing professional body of specialists is emerging. Alongside systems engineers and project managers, many human factors specialists are involved in the design of new systems. By attending to the contextual details, designs become more compatible with their human counterparts and numerous analytical tools and techniques have been developed for this purpose. Therefore, it would be advantageous for railway operators and systems engineers to know the types of activities human factors specialists are involved in and how they might contribute to human factors integration. A literature review was conducted to identify the integration approaches used by technology designers and various safety-critical domains. Additionally, a study was conducted to identify the human factors analytical tools and techniques that are typically used in control room settings. Findings from the study provide a useful snapshot of the types of activities human factors professionals are involved in, the tools and techniques they use and the areas currently being addressed that benefit from closer human factors attention.
This paper describes the work being conducted in the Baseline Rail Level Crossing Video project, supported by the Australian rail industry and the Cooperative Research Centre for Rail Innovation. The paper discusses the limitations of near-miss data for analysis obtained using current level crossing occurrence reporting practices. The project is addressing these limitations through the development of a data collection and analysis system with an underlying level crossing accident causation model. An overview of the methodology and improved data recording process are described. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of benefits this project is expected to provide the Australian rail industry.
Track maintenance work is one of the most hazardous jobs in the rail industry. Track workers are in danger of being fatally injured by rail traffic either on the track they are working on or on adjacent tracks. The rail industry has developed many safe working procedures and protection systems to minimise the risk. The Australian rail industry is now trialling new technology that automatically warns the track workers of approaching trains. These technologies may be added to or ultimately replace the current safe working procedures. As there are different products and technologies available for track worker protection it is not clear which technology is best for the Australian rail environment. The CRC for Rail Innovation project 'R3.120-Track Worker Protection Technology' aims to identify and compare systems that improve protection for track workers. Commercially available systems use different types of technologies and have different safety integrity levels. The effectiveness of a safety system is not only dependent on the technology but also the track workers who operate and are protected by the system. Short-term trials may not highlight all issues across the systems' life cycle so to analyse these socio-technical systems in a relatively short time period a specifically adapted hazard and operability (HAZOP) study is being undertaken. The HAZOP study evaluates both the technical and human factor aspects of the system utilising an expert team. Initially one of the commercially available track worker protection systems was selected as the base for the HAZOP and other track worker protection systems will be analysed based on the issues identified with the initial system. This paper discusses the 'Track Worker Protection Technology' project, the track worker protection technology that is available and the adapted HAZOP used to analyse a track worker safety system as a socio-technical system.
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