01519623

Component

Human performance is a major contributor to railway incidents and accidents. The literature shows that it is the train drivers, signallers and controllers who mainly affect the network in terms of safety. Several studies have been conducted to investigate operators’ influence on the railway system. However, most of them are based on studies from other domains, which are not well suited and can be difficult to apply reliably to railway specific operations. On account of that, this paper presents a framework to identify the most significant performance shaping factors that influence railway operators’ performance. These factors, broadly known as performance shaping factors (PSFs), have been derived from an extensive literature review in addition to the analysis of 479 railway operational incidents and accidents that happened the last 15 years worldwide. Based on the results the existing Railway Performance Shaping Factors (R-PSFs) taxonomy is validated and its updated version is obtained. The analysis focuses on the R-PSFs and their relation to the type of events, as well as to a number of factors that affect the safety of railway operations including: the responsible personnel, the immediate causes, the time and the location of the event. Findings show that 12 R-PSFs account for more than 90% of the occurrences, regardless the severity of the event. For those R-PSFs, Pearson’s chi-square tests indicate the pair-wise associations amongst the data, while log linear analysis identifies if any higher order associations exists amongst them. Finally, regression analysis is conducted to estimate the likelihood of an event to occur due to a certain R-PSF. Results indicate the contribution of each individual R-PSF to the occurrence of a railway incident or accident. Findings will be used to direct resources more efficiently towards the development of sound solutions for improving operators performance.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AR070 Railroad Operational Safety. Alternate title: Data-Based Framework to Identify the Most Significant Performance-Shaping Factors in Railway Operations

01503729

14-1588

English

19p

2014

Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Crash analysis; Human factors in crashes; Locomotive engineers; Railroad safety; Statistical analysis

Performance shaping factors

Planning and Forecasting; Railroads; Safety and Human Factors; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2014 Paper #14-1588

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 27 2014 2:35PM