Management of personal safety risk for lever operation in mechanical railway signal boxes.

Despite increased implementation of computer control systems in managing and regulating rail networks, mechanical signal boxes using lever operation will be in place for years to come. A rolling risk assessment programme identified a number of levers in mechanical signal boxes within the UK rail network which potentially presented unacceptable personal safety risk to signallers. These levers operate both points and signals and the risk is primarily the weights which have to be moved when pulling and pushing the levers.

Development of design principles for automated systems in transport control.

Unlabelled: This article reports the results of a qualitative study investigating attitudes towards and opinions of an advanced automation system currently used in UK rail signalling. In-depth interviews were held with 10 users, key issues associated with automation were identified and the automation's impact on the signalling task investigated. The interview data highlighted the importance of the signallers' understanding of the automation and their (in)ability to predict its outputs.

Developing a Rail Ergonomics Questionnaire (REQUEST).

In this first of two papers the development of a shortened version of the Rail Ergonomics Questionnaire (REQUEST) is described. REQUEST has been designed to survey attitudes and opinions of railway workers on a range of human factors issues, with scales based on those used and validated elsewhere or else specially developed on the basis of studies of rail workers. Important characteristics of different roles, especially signallers, are outlined.

Attitudes and opinions of railway signallers and related staff, using the Rail Ergonomics Questionnaire (REQUEST).

REQUEST, the Rail Ergonomics Questionnaire, has been designed to survey attitudes and opinions of railway signallers and those in associated roles on a range of human factors such as job satisfaction, the workplace, culture or stress. The development of the survey instrument has been described in Ryan et al. [2008.

A naturalistic study of railway controllers.

There is an increasing prevalence for work to be analysed through naturalistic study, especially using ethnographically derived methods of enquiry and qualitative field research. The relatively unexplored domain of railway control (in comparison to signalling) in the UK is described in terms of features derived from observations and semi-structured interviews. In addition, task diagrams (a technique taken from the Applied Cognitive Task Analysis toolkit) are used to represent controllers' core elements of work, i.

Driver performance modelling and its practical application to railway safety.

This paper reports on the development and main features of a model of driver information processing. The work was conducted on behalf of Network Rail to meet a requirement to understand and manage the driver's interaction with the infrastructure through lineside reminder appliances. The model utilises cognitive theory and modelling techniques to describe driver performance in relation to infrastructure features and operational conditions.