Development and Assessment of Taxonomy for Performance-Shaping Factors for Railway Operations

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2289, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2012, 145-153

9 Pages Posted: 8 Oct 2014 Last revised: 22 May 2015

See all articles by Miltos Kyriakidis

Miltos Kyriakidis

Delft University of Technology

Arnab Majumdar

Imperial College London - Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Gudela Grote

ETH Zürich - Department of Management, Technology, and Economics (D-MTEC)

Washington Ochieng

Imperial College London

Date Written: July 31, 2011

Abstract

Human performance is a significant contributor to railway incidents and accidents. The literature shows that train drivers, signalers, and controllers most affect network safety. Several studies have been conducted in the field of human factors and human performance in the railway domain to investigate operators’ influence on the railway system. However, most studies are based on previous studies from other domains, which are not well suited and can be difficult to apply reliably to railway-specific operations. In light of the current limitations, this paper proposes a new approach referred to as the human performance railway operational index (HuPeROI). HuPeROI aims not only to estimate the human error probability for railway operations but also to propose mitigation strategies to minimize phenomena such as operators’ degraded performance. HuPeROI is based on a performance-shaping factors taxonomy designed for the rail industry, referred to as the railway performance-shaping factor (R-PSF) taxonomy. The R-PSF taxonomy was developed on the basis of an extensive literature review of the field of human factors and subsequently validated against the findings derived from the analysis of 179 railway accident and incident reports, as well as targeted interviews with subject matter experts. This paper presents the taxonomy and the underlying theory, as well as the results of the validation process based on the analysis of 179 reports and the assessment of R-PSFs for four different scenarios based on a subject matter expert elicitation process. The R-PSF taxonomy and HuPeROI should enable researchers to address and deal with the effect of degraded performance of railway operators.

Suggested Citation

Kyriakidis, Miltos and Majumdar, Arnab and Grote, Gudela and Ochieng, Washington, Development and Assessment of Taxonomy for Performance-Shaping Factors for Railway Operations (July 31, 2011). Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2289, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2012, 145-153, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2506591 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2506591

Miltos Kyriakidis (Contact Author)

Delft University of Technology ( email )

Mekelweg 2
Mekelweg 2
Delft, 2628 CN
Netherlands

Arnab Majumdar

Imperial College London - Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering ( email )

Exhibition Road
London SW7 2AZ
United Kingdom

Gudela Grote

ETH Zürich - Department of Management, Technology, and Economics (D-MTEC) ( email )

ETH-Zentrum
Zurich, CH-8092
United States

Washington Ochieng

Imperial College London ( email )

South Kensington Campus
Exhibition Road
London, Greater London SW7 2AZ
United Kingdom

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