The rail human factors/ergonomics community has grown quickly and extensively, and there is much increased recognition of the vital importance of ergonomics/human factors by rail infrastructure owners, rail operating companies, system developers, regulators and national and trans-national government. This book, the fourth on rail human factors, is
In recent years, for reasons connected to the organization of the industry, technical developments, and major safety concerns, rail human factors has grown in importance at an international level. Despite its importance, however, supporting literature has been largely restricted to specialist journal publications and technical reports. Rail Human Factors addresses this imbalance by providing the first fully comprehensive overview of the area. The volume includes contributions from leading ergonomists, psychologists, sociologists, management scientists and engineers whose common theme is to investigate, understand and design for people on the railways, including staff, passengers and the general public. Every area of ergonomics/human factors is covered: physical design of work and equipment in maintenance; cognitive ergonomics in driving, signalling and control; organizational and social ergonomics in the way teams are formed, plans are made and organizations are structured and run. Topics covered include: ¢ Systems views of rail human factors ¢ Driver models and performance ¢ Train and cab design ¢ Network and train control systems, including ERTMS ¢ Signals and signal ¢ SPADS ¢ Signalling and control center design ¢ Signaller performance ¢ Control center interfaces ¢ Workload, situation awareness, team working ¢ Human error and reliability ¢ Timetabling and planning ¢ Maintenance planning and work ¢ Safety climate and safety culture ¢ Passenger comfort and behaviour ¢ Station design ¢ Public information systems ¢ Level crossings ¢ Trespass and vandalism ¢ Ergonomics standards and guidelines ¢ Human Factors integration The book is the definitive guide for all those concerned with making railways safer, more reliable, of higher quality and more efficient. It will be essential reading for policy-makers, researchers and industry around the world.
Following on from 2005's Rail Human Factors: Supporting the Integrated Railway, this book brings together an even broader range of academics and practitioners from around the world to share their expertise and experience on rail human factors. The content is both comprehensive and cutting-edge, featuring more than 55 chapters addressing the following topics: ¢ Passengers and public ¢ Driver performance and workload ¢ Driving and cognition ¢ Train cab and interfaces: simulation and design ¢ Routes, signage, signals and drivability ¢ Signalling and control of the railway ¢ Planning for the railway ¢ Engineering work and maintenance ¢ Level crossings ¢ Accidents and safety ¢ Human error and human reliability ¢ SPADs: signals passed at danger ¢ Human factors integration and standards ¢ Impairments to performance ¢ Staff competencies and training. People and Rail Systems: Human Factors at the Heart of the Railway will be invaluable for all those concerned with making railways safer, more reliable, of higher quality and more efficient. It will be essential reading for policy-makers, researchers and industry around the world.
In recent years, for reasons connected to the organization of the industry, technical developments, and major safety concerns, rail human factors has grown in importance at an international level. Despite its importance, however, supporting literature has been largely restricted to specialist journal publications and technical reports. Rail Human Factors addresses this imbalance by providing the first fully comprehensive overview of the area. The volume includes contributions from leading ergonomists, psychologists, sociologists, management scientists and engineers whose common theme is to investigate, understand and design for people on the railways, including staff, passengers and the general public. Every area of ergonomics/human factors is covered: physical design of work and equipment in maintenance; cognitive ergonomics in driving, signalling and control; organizational and social ergonomics in the way teams are formed, plans are made and organizations are structured and run. Topics covered include: Systems views of rail human factors Driver models and performance Train and cab design Network and train control systems, including ERTMS Signals and signal SPADS Signalling and control center design Signaller performance Control center interfaces Workload, situation awareness, team working Human error and reliability Timetabling and planning Maintenance planning and work Safety climate and safety culture Passenger comfort and behaviour Station design Public information systems Level crossings Trespass and vandalism Ergonomics standards and guidelines Human Factors integration The book is the definitive guide for all those concerned with making railways safer, more
Traffic psychology is a rapidly expanding and broad field within applied psychology with a considerable volume of research activities and a growing network of academic strands of enquiry. The discipline primarily focuses on the behaviour of road users and the psychological processes underlying these behaviours, looking at issues such as cognition, distraction, fatigue, personality and social aspects, often delivering practical applications and educational interventions. Traffic psychology has been the focus of research for almost as long as the motor car has been in existence and was first recognised as a discipline in 1990 when the International Association of Applied Psychology formed Division 13: Traffic and Transportation Psychology. The benefits of understanding traffic psychology are being increasingly recognised by a whole host of organisations keen to improve road safety or minimise health and safety risks when travelling in vehicles. The objective of this volume is to describe and discuss recent advances in the study of traffic psychology, with a major focus on how the field contributes to the understanding of at-risk road-user behaviour. The intended readerships include road-safety researchers from a variety of different academic backgrounds, senior practitioners in the field including regulatory authorities, the private and public sector personnel, and vehicle manufacturers concerned with improving road safety.
Many books focus on individual differences and how those relate to traffic safety such as accident proneness, gender differences, age, alcohol, and the effects of drugs. Others focus on the safety effects regarding the vehicle such as airbags, anti-lock brakes, navigation systems, intelligent cruise control and other new gadgets coming to the vehicle. Even though these topics are undoubtedly important for traffic safety, this book takes a unique approach as it focuses solely on the road environment. Designing Safe Road Systems provides the background for those who want to know more about the effects of road design on driving behaviour. It uses a systems approach to allow a better understanding of why and in what circumstances drivers may commit errors. This understanding will ultimately lead to road systems that prevent (fatal) errors from occurring. The book contains an overview of the current models and theories about human performance and human behaviour in traffic that are relevant for all those involved in designing safe road systems. The central theme of this book is how design principles can reduce the probability of an error while driving. The authors demonstrate how knowledge of human factors helps a road authority to better understand how road users behave. They argue that in many cases the design of the environment can be further adjusted to human capabilities, and that safety should be considered a system property to be built into the road system.
This edited book concerns the real practice of human factors and ergonomics (HF/E), conveying the perspectives and experiences of practitioners and other stakeholders in a variety of industrial sectors, organisational settings and working contexts. The book blends literature on the nature of practice with diverse and eclectic reflections from experience in a range of contexts, from healthcare to agriculture. It explores what helps and what hinders the achievement of the core goals of HF/E: improved system performance and human wellbeing.?The book should be of interest to current HF/E practitioners, future HF/E practitioners, allied practitioners, HF/E advocates and ambassadors, researchers, policy makers and regulators, and clients of HF/E services and products.
Driver inattention has been identified as one of the leading causes for car accidents. The problem of distraction while driving is likely to worsen, partly due to increasingly complex in-car technologies. However, intelligent transport systems are being developed to assist drivers and to ensure a safe road environment. One approach to the design of ergonomic automobile systems is to integrate our understanding of the human information processing systems into the design process. This book aims to further the design of ergonomic multisensory interfaces using research from the fast-growing field of cognitive neuroscience. It focuses on two aspects of driver information-processing in particular: multisensory interactions and the spatial distribution of attention in driving. The Multisensory Driver provides interface design guidelines together with a detailed review of current cognitive neuroscience and behavioural research in multisensory human perception, which will help the development of ergonomic interfaces. The discussion on spatial attention is particularly relevant for car interface designers, but it will also appeal to cognitive psychologists interested in spatial attention and the applications of these theoretical research findings. Giving a detailed description of a cohesive series of psychophysical experiments on multisensory warning signals, conducted in both laboratory and simulator settings, this book provides an approach for those in the engineering discipline who wish to test their systems with human observers.
Research on driver behaviour over the past two decades has clearly demonstrated that the goals and motivations a driver brings to the driving task are important determinants for driver behaviour. The importance of this work is underlined by statistics: WHO figures show that road accidents are predicted to be the number three cause of death and injury by 2020 (currently more than 20 million deaths and injuries p.a.). The objective of this second edition, and of the conference on which it is based, is to describe and discuss recent advances in the study of driving behaviour and driver training. It bridges the gap between practitioners in road safety, and theoreticians investigating driving behaviour, from a number of different perspectives and related disciplines. A major focus is to consider how driver training needs to be adapted, to take into account driver characteristics, goals and motivations, in order to raise awareness of how these may contribute to unsafe driving behaviour, and to go on to promote the development of driver training courses that considers all the skills that are essential for road safety. As well as setting out new approaches to driver training methodology based on many years of empirical research on driver behaviour, the contributing road safety researchers and professionals consider the impact of human factors in the design of driver training as well as the traditional skills-based approach. Readership includes road safety researchers from a variety of different academic backgrounds, senior practitioners in the field of driver training from regulatory authorities and professional driver training organizations such as the police service, and private and public sector personnel who are concerned with improving road safety.
Human error is implicated in nearly all aviation accidents, yet most investigation and prevention programs are not designed around any theoretical framework of human error. Appropriate for all levels of expertise, the book provides the knowledge and tools required to conduct a human error analysis of accidents, regardless of operational setting (i.e. military, commercial, or general aviation). The book contains a complete description of the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS), which incorporates James Reason's model of latent and active failures as a foundation. Widely disseminated among military and civilian organizations, HFACS encompasses all aspects of human error, including the conditions of operators and elements of supervisory and organizational failure. It attracts a very broad readership. Specifically, the book serves as the main textbook for a course in aviation accident investigation taught by one of the authors at the University of Illinois. This book will also be used in courses designed for military safety officers and flight surgeons in the U.S. Navy, Army and the Canadian Defense Force, who currently utilize the HFACS system during aviation accident investigations. Additionally, the book has been incorporated into the popular workshop on accident analysis and prevention provided by the authors at several professional conferences world-wide. The book is also targeted for students attending Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University which has satellite campuses throughout the world and offers a course in human factors accident investigation for many of its majors. In addition, the book will be incorporated into courses offered by Transportation Safety International and the Southern California Safety Institute. Finally, this book serves as an excellent reference guide for many safety professionals and investigators already in the field.