Applying Human Factors expertise when ‘people have had enough of experts’ Overcoming industry inertia by influencing and implementing from the ‘ivory tower’

Andrew Taylor

Great Western Railway

Andrew Taylor joined the railway is 2003, after a brief flirtation with a career as a pilot. Starting as a dispatcher at Heathrow Express, he subsequently became a train driver, then a train driver instructor and trainer. In 2008, he was seconded to the Rail Safety & Standards Board as part of the Workforce Development team and subsequently took up a permanent position, eventually being a proud member of Ann Mills' Human Factors team. His work at RSSB focussed on adult learning and innovation, particularly in train driving, but across railway operations. The culmination of this was his contribution to the RS100 Good Practice Guide to Competence Development. Andrew joined Southern to apply some of this good practice, in 2011. Since 2015, Andrew has worked closer to his home in Reading, for Great Western Railway, where he currently holds the post of Driver Training Policy Manager.