Effective Alarms Management: Towards a Rail Industry Specific Project Process

Alarms management affects rail service and safety. The modern railway consists of many complex and highly automated systems that enable a relatively small number of people to monitor, control, and maintain trains, signalling,... [ view full abstract ]

Alarms management affects rail service and safety. The modern railway consists of many complex and highly automated systems that enable a relatively small number of people to monitor, control, and maintain trains, signalling, and infrastructure, remotely. Each of these systems may produce many hundreds of alarms, alerts, warnings, and notifications in an effort to maintain operator situation awareness.

Alarms are status indicators designed to convey a special message to the operator, usually requiring some action or indicating an imminent event (DEF STAN 00-250, 2008). An effective alarm management system alerts operators to problems early, informs them of the best corrective action to take, and does not overload operators with excessive alarms during abnormal situations (ASM Consortium, 2009).

Ineffective alarms management has been associated with some of the most significant and costly industrial and rail accidents. These include the Texaco refinery explosion at Milford Haven in 1994 (HSE, 1997) and the train collision in the Washington Metropolitan Area that killed 9 people in June 2009 (NTSB, 2010).

In 1999 the Engineering Equipment and Materials Users Association produced 'EEMUA Publication No. 191, Alarms Systems, a Guide to Design, Management and Procurement'. This comprehensive guidance document has been used in industries worldwide, including rail, to guide consensus on principles and practices for AM. EEMUA 191 promotes four core principles for AM design: 1) Usability, 2) Safety, 3) Performance Monitoring and 4) Investment in Engineering.

Recent experience of applying EEMUA 191 alarms management guidance to the railway has shown that railways operate, fail, and deviate differently from the power and petrochemical industries, to the extent that the guidance provided is not sufficient to meet the needs of the rail human factors practitioner. Good work to rectify this issue is being conducted and there are some good standards with a rail context covering the first three principles of EEMUA 191. However, to be successful a structured alarms management methodology should be employed so that every alarm is justified and properly engineered.

This paper introduces a proposal for a rail industry specific human-centred alarms management design and implementation process. The aim is to establish a common multi-disciplinary approach that can be adopted by the rail industry and their suppliers. The process proposed in the paper aims to support a rigorous structured approach to the integration of alarms management principles in systems development for new and existing systems that will generate alarms. It is based upon pre-existing technical, human factors integration and alarms management integration development processes in an effort to promote its acceptance and efficiency of delivery.The alarms management activities in the process have been adapted from those given in existing process industry alarms management (ANSI/ISA-18.2-2009). It is proposed that correct application of the approach should ensure every alarm contributes to optimal safety, and operational efficiency and effectiveness, by promoting situational awareness and an appropriate and timely response to incidents, without causing operator overload.