Human performance in the rail freight yard.

Human performance in the rail freight yard has been identified as a source of risk for rail freight operations. This is both within the yard itself, and also with train preparation issues leading to incidents on the network. The rail freight yard is an area that has received limited research attention. Over 30 hours of observations were conducted at five major freight yards in Great Britain, along with 30 interviews of rail freight ground staff. Task models, human performance factors and potential solutions that were further explored in a workshop with freight personnel. This analysis led to an understanding of freight yard activities, the impact of freight yard design and environment, and the role external pressures on freight yard performance including upstream planning. The implications are discussed for both current freight operations, and for future technology and process change within the rail freight sector.

Human performance in the rail freight yard is critical to safety and performance, but receives little research attention. A structured study included observations in the yard, interviews with ground staff, and a validation workshop. Results include task models, influencing factors, potential solutions and implications for future technology and process change.

Applying ergonomics within the multi-modelling paradigm with an example from multiple UAV control.

This article presents a position statement on using ergonomics in conjunction with the multi-modelling paradigm. Multi-modelling is a computational approach to combine models of systems and components for design and simulation of cyber physical systems and systems of systems. Despite potentially significant benefits in terms of more human-centric system modelling, there is limited evidence of the application of ergonomics within multi-modelling. This article presents the case for applying ergonomics within multi-modelling. We open with an introduction to multi-modelling and benefits, applications and gaps for ergonomics in multi-modelling, and of potentially useful models from ergonomics. We then describe a proof-of-concept implementation of ergonomics within a multi-model of UAV control. This demonstrates that as well as user-centred modelling, this approach supports ergonomics in how we can access rich systems models, and the collaborative value of applying ergonomics theory in systems design. Practitioner Summary: Examines multi-modelling, a computational approach for complex modelling, and the contribution of ergonomics. An autonomous UAV test implementation demonstrates the application of ergonomics knowledge for improving design and evaluation processes, and how multi-modelling can give ergonomics access to rich systems models. Abbreviations: ACT-R: adaptive control of thought-rational; API: application programming interface; CFD: computational fluid dynamics; COTS: commerical off the shelf; CPS: cyber-physical system; CT: continuous time; DE: discrete event; DSE: design space exploration; FME: finite element modeling; FMI: functional mock-up interface; FMU: functional mock-up unit; GOMS: goals, operators, methods, selections; HCI: human-computer interaction; IMPRINT: improved performance research integration tool; INTO-CPS: integrated toolchain for cyber-physical system modeling; KLM: keystroke level model; MPC: model-predictive control; SysML: system markup language; SoS: system of system; UAV: unmanned aerial vehicle.

Nature: a new paradigm for well-being and ergonomics.

Nature is presented as a new paradigm for ergonomics. As a discipline concerned with well-being, the importance of natural environments for wellness should be part of ergonomics knowledge and practice. This position is supported by providing a concise summary of the evidence of the value of the natural environment to well-being. Further, an emerging body of research has found relationships between well-being and a connection to nature, a concept that reveals the integrative character of human experience which can inform wider practice and epistemology in ergonomics. Practitioners are encouraged to bring nature into the workplace, so that ergonomics keeps pace with the move to nature-based solutions, but also as a necessity in the current ecological and social context. Practitioner Summary: Nature-based solutions are coming to the fore to address societal challenges such as well-being. As ergonomics is concerned with well-being, there is a need for a paradigm shift in the discipline. This position is supported by providing a concise summary of the evidence of the value of the natural environment to well-being.

A framework to support human factors of automation in railway intelligent infrastructure.

Technological and organisational advances have increased the potential for remote access and proactive monitoring of the infrastructure in various domains and sectors - water and sewage, oil and gas and transport. Intelligent Infrastructure (II) is an architecture that potentially enables the generation of timely and relevant information about the state of any type of infrastructure asset, providing a basis for reliable decision-making. This paper reports an exploratory study to understand the concepts and human factors associated with II in the railway, largely drawing from structured interviews with key industry decision-makers and attachment to pilot projects. Outputs from the study include a data-processing framework defining the key human factors at different levels of the data structure within a railway II system and a system-level representation. The framework and other study findings will form a basis for human factors contributions to systems design elements such as information interfaces and role specifications.

Local knowledge in rail signalling and balancing trade-offs.

The control of rail signalling is known to be highly dependent on local knowledge and local factors. It is also known to be highly cognitive in its nature involving a constant balancing of system performance within the constraints of safety. In the current paper, data generated through field work with signallers were used to understand the role of local knowledge, set against the background of an existing Local Knowledge Framework (Pickup et al., 2013) that was proposed to help determine the contents and mechanisms behind local knowledge in rail signalling. The field work included interviews with signallers and operations managers along with observations of signaller work. The results showed that the local knowledge framework needs to be expanded to include aspects related to the general public at user worked crossings and level crossings. In addition, the analysis highlights some of the issues with the transmission of local knowledge. The paper then discusses some of the gaps in the current framework, highlighting the importance not only of local knowledge for specific functions of signalling, but how these interact to support trade-offs to balance performance with safety. The implications for the design of signaller work are discussed.

Impact of COVID-19 on health and safety in the construction sector.

Construction has been significantly affected by COVID-19 yet is critical to the post-COVID economic recovery. Specifically, construction needs to be constantly aware of safety and risk balanced with timely project delivery. Guidance for COVID-19 must therefore be implemented in a way that reflects working practice and pressures. There is, however, a potential knowledge gap regarding the practical feasibility and impact of applying COVID-19 measures within construction, made more difficult by factors such as the temporary nature of projects and complex working arrangements. This article presents a commentary on safe construction during, and beyond, COVID-19, covering the human factors challenges and practicalities of implementing COVID-19 measures. We observe that while guidance is strong on risk management, understanding of how best to implement this guidance is not yet stable. Also, care must be taken that implementing guidance does not detract from general safety, which is also challenged by increased pressures on delivery arising from COVID-19. There may, however, be opportunities for safer working practice arising from new awareness of health, hygiene, and safety risk. The role of safety leadership is overlooked in guidance yet is vital to ensure safe application of COVID-19 working practices. The key message is that COVID-19 needs to be integrated and promoted within a general risk management approach, in part because this takes account of differing priorities regarding safety risks, rather than overly focussing on COVID-19, and also because the effectiveness of COVID-19 mitigations can be amplified by integration with pre-existing safety processes.

An interview analysis of coordination behaviours in Out-of-Hours secondary care.

This paper seeks to elicit and structure the factors that shape the execution and, in particular, the coordination of work in Out of Hours care. Evenings and weekends in UK hospitals are managed by specific Out of Hours (OoH) care arrangements, and associated technology. Managing care within the constraints of staff availability and demands is a key concern for both patient care and staff wellbeing, yet has received little attention from healthcare human factors. A study of sixteen clinical staff used Critical Decision Method to understand how work is coordinated and the constraints and criteria that are applied by the roles managing OoH care. The analysis identified ten types of coordination decision that, in turn, underpinned three types of adaptive behaviour - pre-emption, information augmentation and self-organisation - that were crucial for the effective performance in OoH care. These behaviours explain how OoH staff manage the task demands placed on them, individually and as a team.

Application of Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) to UK rail safety of the line incidents.

Minor safety incidents on the railway cause disruption, and may be indicators of more serious safety risks. The following paper aimed to gain an understanding of the relationship between active and latent factors, and particular causal paths for these types of incidents by using the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) to examine rail industry incident reports investigating such events. 78 reports across 5 types of incident were reviewed by two authors and cross-referenced for interrater reliability using the index of concordance. The results indicate that the reports were strongly focused on active failures, particularly those associated with work-related distraction and environmental factors. Few latent factors were presented in the reports. Different causal pathways emerged for memory failures for events such a failure to call at stations, and attentional failures which were more often associated with signals passed at danger. The study highlights a need for the rail industry to look more closely at latent factors at the supervisory and organisational levels when investigating minor safety of the line incidents. The results also strongly suggest the importance of a new factor - operational environment - that captures unexpected and non-routine operating conditions which have a risk of distracting the driver. Finally, the study provides further demonstration of the utility of HFACS to the rail industry, and of the usefulness of the index of concordance measure of interrater reliability.