Human factors in rail regulation : modelling a theory of non-linear rail accident and incident networks using the Contributing Factors Framework

In early 2009 the Contributing Factors Framework (CFF) was launched nationally to the rail industry in Australia. It was developed specifically for the rail industry and aligns with systemic incident investigation models. It was developed to capture and code information about all factors that may have contributed to a rail safety occurrence. The three main coding headings used in the CFF to capture this information are: Individual/Team Actions, Technical Failures and Local Conditions/Organisational Factors. Whilst the CFF currently captures contributing factors in the three stand alone headings this research is interested in visually modelling the previously unseen and unidentified non-linear network interactions of all the contributing factors across these three headings. It is also interested in looking at the strength of the relationships amongst the factors as a more holistic way of understanding accident taxonomy. The aim is to identify the trends, through modelling, of which factors contribute the most to high risk types of rail safety accidents and incidents. To achieve this aim major rail safety occurrence reports were analysed for the 5 year period 2006 to 2010 using the CFF tool. The contributing factors for four high risk types of rail incidents: being Collisions, Derailments, Safe Working Breaches and Signals Passes at Dangers (SPADs) will be modelled. Work has now begun on using network analysis software to investigate how the contributing factors are interlinked, how contributing factors are networking and the contribution that the factors have on accident phenomenology. It is envisaged that the outcome of this project will be the development of a new form of visual accident modelling and that this modelling will identify which contributing factors need to be controlled or mitigated for each type of rail safety incident to enhance accident prevention.