Jane Rajan – författare

The rail human factors/ergonomics community has grown quickly and extensively, and there is much increased recognition of the vital importance of ergonomics/human factors by rail infrastructure owners, rail operating companies, system developers, regulators and national and trans-national government. This book, the third on rail human factors, is drawn from papers presented at the Lille 3rd International Conference on Rail Human Factors. The contributions cover the range of human and organisational issues on the railway, from driving to signalling and control to maintenance and engineering work, to passengers and security issues such as trespass, and address improvements in safety, reliability, use of capacity, efficiency and quality. The book represents the best of recent work in rail human factors, and starts to define the framework for the next few years. As well as the human factors areas listed above, the conference and thus the book are notable for sessions on simulation in rail human factors and on human factors in metro design and operation. The book also reflects the increased attention being paid to, and developments in, understanding all aspects of rail stakeholders’ behaviour, and also the contribution of ergonomics/human factors to innovative network control systems which will enhance reliability, safety and use of capacity. The book will be of interest to a number of groups: those working in the rail sector from a human factors point of view; the larger rail industry and related bodies generally; and in terms of transferrable knowledge to ergonomists and human factors specialists working in other industries.

Safety-critical systems are found in almost every sector of industry. Faults in these systems will result in a breach of safe operating conditions and exposure to the possible risk of major loss of life or catastrophic damage to plant, equipment or the environment. An understanding of the basis for the functioning of these systems is therefore vital to all involved in their operation. In particular, the interaction of the disciplines of software engineering, safety engineering, human factors and safety management is a total process whose entirety is not widely understood by those working in any of the individual fields. This book will redress that problem by providing an introduction to each constituent part with a cohesive structure and overview of the whole subject. It will be of interest to engineers, managers, students and anyone with responsibilities in these areas.