Fatigue as a factor in high risk rail incidents
Dan Basacik
RSSB
Dan is a Lead Human Factors Specialist at the Rail Safety and Standards Board - RSSB - in London. Prior to RSSB, he worked at the UK’s Transport Research Laboratory. In his time at RSSB Dan has worked on projects to do with signals passed at danger, passenger safety at station platforms and road user behaviour at level crossings. His focus in recent years has been on getting good human factors data from incident investigations. He has recently been tasked with scoping and developing RSSB’s human factors work on the topic of fatigue and alertness.
Abstract
Following their investigation into the uncontrolled run-back of a freight train in 2015, RAIB recommended that RSSB implement measures to improve the quality and quantity of available data relating to fatigue-in railway... [ view full abstract ]
Following their investigation into the uncontrolled run-back of a freight train in 2015, RAIB recommended that RSSB implement measures to improve the quality and quantity of available data relating to fatigue-in railway accidents and incidents.
Data contained in the investigation reports of 246 high risk railway incidents were analysed, to understand the prevalence of fatigue as a factor. This analysis was carried out in the Incident Factor Classification System, which allowed underlying causes of incidents to be categorised and recorded. Then, data from the Safety Management Information System (SMIS) for these 246 incidents were reviewed.
The analysis identified fatigue as a factor in 21% of the incident reports, which is consistent with estimates from other industries. Home-life related fatigue was the most cited reason for the fatigue (40%) followed by work-related fatigue (38%). An analysis of SMIS data for the same sample of incidents showed that the relevant fields for fatigue were often not completed in this database. For example, information regarding the individual's roster pattern, sleep duration, and commute time was often not identified and recorded in the database.
The results provided a new insight into the prevalence of fatigue in rail incidents and established a good basis for fatigue analysis. There are difficulties inherent in investigating and identifying fatigue as a factor in incidents and it is important to interpret the data cautiously. It is necessary to continue to investigate incidents and where possible improve the quality of fatigue assessment and reporting in incident investigations. This will enable rail companies to inform their Fatigue Risk Management Systems (FRMS) in an attempt to minimise fatigue experienced by front line staff which may lead to an incident.
Authors
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Dan Basacik
(RSSB)
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Huw Gibson
(RSSB)
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Nic Bowler
(Arup)
Topic Areas
Accident and incident investigation , Fatigue risk management, work hours, breaks, shift work and on-call work
Session
F-1 » Fatigue (11:20 - Monday, 6th November, Smile 2 and 3)
Paper
RHF2017_Fatigue_in_incidents_v3.pdf
