Can we feed the beast of automation? An analysis of the operational and organisational impact on railway traffic management

The Danish railway is undergoing major change. This is both in the capital, Copenhagen, through the update to CBTC for the S-bane; and country-wide, with the introduction of ERTMS on Fjernbane. A key part of the strategy... [ view full abstract ]

The Danish railway is undergoing major change. This is both in the capital, Copenhagen, through the update to CBTC for the S-bane; and country-wide, with the introduction of ERTMS on Fjernbane. A key part of the strategy includes a focus on automation.  

The HF-led Railway Integration team at Banedanmark is becoming very aware of the potential impact of automation. This paper discusses a critical concern that automation is a beast that needs feeding. Is it possible that there are elements of the servant becoming the master as we automate more?

We will explore areas of operations and organisation and the relationship of the design of the products and the selection of the people. Of interest are: 

• The association between design and operations 
  • Alignment between technology and processes that form Operational Rules  
  • Assumption of product-based knowledge, rather than situation and operational needs
  • Remoteness from the operational railway
  • Technology-delivered solutions that are state-machine focused
  • User expectations of higher inherent safety levels
  • Poor user guidance when they need to take back control and management.
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• The role profiles and training needs
  • The potential for safety-related responsibilities for less obvious roles
  • Complex and cross-over of responsibilities
  • The criticality of “Back Office” roles and possible up-skilling
  • The likelihood of boredom and loss of satisfaction (dumbing-down) in previously highly-skilled roles
  • How do we predict where there will be high workload and how to manage and layout a control centre for normal operations Vs degraded situations
  • Difficulty in training out new and altered roles during changes in technology and functionality delivery from suppliers.

Examples will be given, the operational and organisational costs and benefits of each will be discussed. These will focus on how a railway traffic management system with an automated production plan becomes the critical driver for maintaining the service. We note that “rubbish in, means rubbish out” and state the reality that automation relies as much on people as any other system! 

The first example will discuss the change in role from operational signaller to dispatcher, with workload and skills associated with technology-assisted rescheduling.

The second example will focus on possession planning and establishing a possession, discussing the requirements for a wide range of systems and processes to automate and support users in the field to do tasks that a signaller used to be responsible for.

Some tools and techniques that have been developed or adapted for use on the Banedanmark Signalling Programme are introduced. We provide a discussion that HF-led thinking is essential where technologists and engineers make up 98% of the delivery team.