On track for the future
Non-technical skills are vital to rail network controllers’ performance with qualities such situation awareness and self-management likely to be even more important in an automated future, a new study claims. Researchers looked at areas including communication, decision making, cooperation and workload management to discover potential links to ways of working. They also explored which specific behaviours were used to reduce the risk of errors.
The team from Central Queensland University looked at 61 scenarios generated from 55 network controllers in eight organisations across Australia and New Zealand. They highlighted the importance of a good relationship between controllers and train drivers, with any instability in this dynamic easily inducing elevated risk. And they also noted how the controller’s role could change with the move towards more automation in the rail network.
The study, published in the journal Applied Ergonomics, said: “In time to come, network controllers are likely to become more akin to ‘rail safety managers’ as their tasks become more automated. This means that applications of skill associated with categories such as Situation Awareness, Conscientiousness and Self-Management (to name but a few) will become more critical to the role, and capture of this will lend itself proactively to anticipation of looming changes.”
