HF Tools and resources

Focus

Following a number of requests from railway undertakings on the topics of driver concentration, attention and distraction, RSSB Human Factors and Research and Development departments undertook a systematic review of research that RSSB has published in these areas, in order to prepare communications materials that can help the Industry to tackle the reported problems.

The following communication items can be used in order to increase driver awareness, with 'FOCUS' being the theme throughout:

• A presentation being the most powerful of the four deliverables, designed to be thought provoking, so that it has a lasting effect on its audience. A common video slide is played at key points throughout the presentation, with an emphasis on 'FOCUS', which becomes a recurring theme for the entire communication campaign.

  (To save the presentation, right click on the presentation link and select "Save Target As")

  • Go to the saved location to access the toolkit.
  • Click on the .swf file to run the RSSB focus presentation
  • And then if prompted - Click on 'select a programme from a list'
  • Choose internet explorer (you do not need to be connected to the internet the application uses but it uses files that are on your computer as the platform to run the presentation)

   

• The presentation is accompanied by notes for the trainers who will present it. The booklet highlights the importance of Situational Awareness (SA) and the benefits of helping drivers to refine their SA skills.
• The presentation is backed up by a drivers' booklet. The booklet is available both as a reminder for drivers who have attended the presentation and as an overview for those who have been unable to attend.
• A two-phase poster campaign has also been designed. In the run up to the presentations, and for the weeks when the presentations are ongoing, a poster which introduces the 'FOCUS' theme can be used to create awareness of, and interest in, the presentations. Following the presentations a second poster can be displayed at those locations, which summarises the key learning points. A panel at the bottom of this poster enables trainers and drivers to write in their 'tip of the month', as a way of keeping the content fresh, local, and relevant.

Safety Culture Toolkit

RSSB has developed a web-based Safety Culture Toolkit that will allow rail companies to measure their own safety culture, and determine the actions that they could take to tackle the issues that have been identified, without the need for extensive external support. The Toolkit will also facilitate the accumulation of data in one place, thus making it easier to establish a single industry view and benchmark individual companies' cultures.

Click on the following link: http://rssb.info-exchange.com/ to visit the toolkit. For queries on this tool, email safetyculturetoolkit-HF@rssb.co.uk

Risk Triggered Commentary Driving

This fact sheet provides an overview on the pros and potential cons of the risk triggered commentary driving technique.

Good practice guide on cognitive and individual risk factors

The aim of this document is to raise awareness of the cognitive and individual factors that can influence the potential for driver error, the distinction between different categories of errors and violations, and to offer good practice guidance on the proactive management and mitigation of the human risks. The document will be available in August 2008.

Mental Workload assessment tools for train drivers

A set of workload assessment tools which can be used for: comparing workload for different driving systems or routes, evaluating design changes and equipment upgrades, appraising staffing levels, establishing training requirements, and incident analysis

Managing driver managers

This guidance document has been developed with the aim of sharing information across the industry about issues that organisations have reported, the reasons they occur, and practices that have proved useful in dealing with them. Not all of the guidance given in this document will suit every company, but studying this guide will help organisations consider:

• How they can improve the performance of front-line managers
• Highlight a number of key issues relating to driver managers,
• Detail why these issues arise.
• Provides examples of current good practices that consider underlying causes of shortfalls and options for addressing them.

This guide does not focus on technical skills, an area which is already well supported and understood. Instead, the focus of this guide is on management skills and the process of supporting driver managers.

Safety Critical Rule Compliance Toolkit

A toolkit of practical methods, procedures and guidance that the railway industry can readily use to improve compliance with safety critical rules. The toolkit focuses on two areas: helping the user to understand why non-compliances occur and providing a set of potential solutions that will help the organisation reduce the incidence of non-compliance

Safety critical rule compliance toolkit (T506) Instructions to download and run the toolkit;

• Go to http://www.rssb.co.uk/pdf/research_misc/T506/Toolkit.zip
• Click on open (don’t save).
• Click on RSSB Compliance Toolkit.exe to extract the toolkit files to your C drive.
• Unzip the files and exit WinZip.
• Go to the saved location (C:\RSSB Compliance Toolkit) to access the toolkit.
• Click on the shortcut with the RSSB Logo to run the RSSB Compliance Toolkit.exe application file.

Fatigue

A number of resources exist to help individuals and their managers manage fatigue.

Good practice leaflets

‘Feeling Tired’ resources comprise of a safety briefing presentation, trainers and trainees notes relating to the presentation and a leaflet with key points and tips to help individuals manage fatigue.

• Feeling tired pack one: fatigue leaflet
• Feeling tired pack two: trainers notes
• Feeling tired pack three: presentation
• Feeling tired pack four: additional information

Coping with Shift Work & Fatigue: A good practice guide for drivers. This guide to shift work and fatigue describes the important factors that affect sleep and performance at work and suggests ways that individuals can maximise alertness.

Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006 fatigue guidance

The Office of Rail Regulation has published health and safety guidance on managing fatigue in safety critical work. The publication supports new requirements in the Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006 (ROGS). The guidance is aimed at those who have control of safety critical work on a transport system. It describes a series of stages that a controller of safety critical work should follow, based on good practice in managing fatigue risks.

Fatigue index

The Fatigue Index (FI) is a simple tool developed by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to provide an assessment of short-term, daily fatigue and cumulative fatigue risks associated with shift work.

Team Working

This package of tools provides practical guidance for management and staff for the development and control of team working, including robust metrics to enable the effectiveness of current (baseline) and future team working to be measured and monitored. The Journey Guide sets how to use the tools and presentations that form part of the deliverables for use by the industry. This should be read first so as to avoid confusion associated with the deliverables.

Journey Guide v1.1

• Tool 1 survey form
• Tools 2 - 9 spreadsheet toolset
• Workshop 1 Taking Stock - part of tool 2
• Maturity statements - part of tool 5
• Maturity scores - part of tool 5
• Tool 8 Planning for Action
• Workshop 2 Planning the Route - part of tool 6
• Workshop 3 Charting Progress -part of tool 9

Stations Wayfinding at stations guide

This good practice guide will introduce the reader to key considerations for preparing new or updating existing, wayfinding information at stations. It provides references and helpful planning considerations that will facilitate the delivery of clear and consistent wayfinding information.

Managing large events and perturbations at stations Good Practice Guide

This good practice guide introduces the reader to the key considerations when preparing to manage crowds at stations.

Managing the risk of trespass from platform ends: a guide to good practice

This good practice guide is designed to assist local staff with the problem of trespass from platform ends. The guide supports the identification of risk and endeavours to offer practical solutions to help reduce unauthorised access.

CCTV toolkit

The CCTV toolkit provides guidance about how to design and apply effective CCTV technology and operations to particular work environments.

Maintenance

To help the rail industry to apply human factors (HF) to rail vehicle maintenance and inspection tasks, this guidance package has been designed to help the rail industry use a 3-step systematic approach to help identify HF issues and then decide upon and apply appropriate HF solutions. The tool is web based and provides an archive of HF good practice relevant to maintenance.

Safety Signage

In his first report on the Ladbroke Grove Rail Inquiry, Lord Cullen made a number of recommendations pertaining to improvements in safety signage:

• Recommendation 71 concerned the use of photoluminescent materials,
• Recommendation 72 the use of pictograms in preference to text and
• Recommendation 73, a common system of safety signage for passenger trains throughout Great Britain.

RSSB working with ATOC commissioned research to develop guidelines and procedures for the design of passenger safety signs. The two documents provide guidelines on how to design and test pictograms and how to design safety signage.

• Graphics guidelines for safety signs
• Guidelines for symbol design and testing

Human factors good practice guide to managing alarms and alerts

The tool consists of two main sections: good practice guidance on the design of alarms and alerts environments, and a checklist tool to evaluate a systems compliance with good practice. The guidance within the tool has been applied in a case study, where it was used to evaluate the design of a number of auditory alerts for the GSM-R in-cab radio.

Human Factors library

The library is searchable database and provides links to over 1500 rail specific research reports and documents from both the GB and international railways, research from safety critical industries such as aviation, nuclear, and chemical, and from the road vehicle driver context.

Non-technical skills

A new page has been added to the RSSB Human Factors site which is specifically dedicated to issues around non-technical skills (generic non-technical skills that underpin technical tasks) in the industry. This page includes useful resources such as:

• A report on the work that RSSB have conducted with a TOC in developing a model for the measurement of non-technical skills and the management of errors in the simulator. This report contains guidance in identifying drivers’ non-technical skills in a simulator environment and developing simulator operators’ ability to observe and feedback on these skills, as well as how to manage driver errors in the simulator and maximise the opportunity to learn from errors.
• Rail resource management is a form of non-technical skills training that originated in the aviation industry. The page includes a briefing document provide an overview of what Rail Resource Management (RRM) training is, how it relates to current activities within the rail industry, and the anticipated costs/benefits of RRM implementation.