Minimising railway control room errors resulting from the interplay of design process errors and design-induced human errors

This study is concerned with minimising railway control room errors that result from the interplay of design process errors and design-induced human errors. As will be shown, design-induced errors all too often result in incidents, accidents and disasters in safety critical systems. Those events are often compounded by the negative responses from those who control the networks where new technologies have been introduced. Examples will be taken from company investigations, government enquiries and the like where it can be shown that both design and human factors have played a part in the events, many of which have caused death and injury. The study investigates current thinking on human error and design theories that attempt to lower the incidence of design-induced error. Participative design is also studied as a potential aid to minimising the disjunct between design and human error, and the changing face of design and human factors issues as over-the-horizon technologies are introduced will be investigated. The end result of this study is intended to be the production of an analytical tool that can be applied to guide the design and introduction of new technologies so that design-induced and human response errors are minimised and perhaps removed when new technologies are introduced into rail network control rooms.Current research with control centre staff indicates that there is a lack of participative design practices and a deep felt need for involvement in the design of the tools that controllers will use. Those results will be discussed and further research activities outlined.