The UK railway has experienced unprecedented growth over the past decade. However, the railway’s success story is also proving to be its Achilles’ heel; the ever increasing demand on the railway is putting considerable strain on its Victorian infrastructure, which is now almost at capacity and struggling to keep ahead of the demands of 21st century Britain.
Addressing this issue, and at the heart of Network Rail’s National Operating Strategy, is significant investment in new traffic management systems. Traffic management aims to deliver a step change in industry performance by enabling the proactive management of traffic on Britain's network. New systems and processes will bring a number of operational benefits, such as real-time planning and the predictive resolution of conflicts.
Delivering traffic management requires the successful combination of new processes and technology, with the core skills and knowledge of our experienced operators. Ergonomics activity is an integral part of the programme, helping to design, inform, and manage the changes to people, process, and technology.
People
The introduction of a new service infrastructure manager role is just one example of the human-centred implementation of traffic management. Collaborative work on job design, selection, and training requires a structured programme of business change, with experienced operational staff, trade union representatives, and route-based project teams at the forefront of activities to ensure operational readiness.
Process
The introduction of traffic management will streamline processes, and improve the flow of information, whilst providing automation that enables more proactive and predictive approaches to manage train services and disruption. This will require more flexible and collaborative ways of working, with signallers, controllers, and other team members organised into pods. Human factors expertise is being used to help identify and shape the behaviours and skills required to support pod working, and to ensure that new processes do not introduce hazards or unintended consequences on operator performance, error, and workload.
Technology
The introduction of new traffic management technology presents tremendous opportunities for ergonomists to help shape the design of the next generation of signalling and control systems. The scope of the ergonomics design activities includes the physical control room environment and workstations, the arrangement of all systems on the desk, and the configuration of core software packages.
The rail operating centres have bespoke layouts, where consideration has been given to the need for collaborative pod working, and new rise and fall desks allow operators to work in either seated or standing positions. On the desk, the design of the signalling, telecoms, level crossing, and planning components that interact to provide the traffic management system, is supported by rigorous evaluation and assurance processes to ensure that the system will meet the needs of end users.
The paper will provide an account of the strategic and tactical ergonomics support to the delivery of the first deployments of traffic management, as well as highlighting the issues faced, and lessons learnt, so far.
Ergonomics design in control facilities, train cabs and rolling stock , Traffic management and driver advisory systems , Team working
