New technology adoption : risky business for the railways

The Australian rail industry is expanding exponentially and is therefore facing significant risk due to the introduction of new technologies. Bringing new systems into network control rooms for various industries has been universally problematic and has heightened concerns of negative safety impacts on operations. A review of the literature revealed that new technology adoption is now the normal process of business operations. In many cases they are adopted when existing technologies fail to adequately support changing operations. Disconnect often results from aging technologies,changed work demands, organisational and/or external pressures. Although offering improvements, new technologies bring uncertainty and may contain hidden technological flaws that can go undetected until a subsequent operational incident occurs. This review highlights the need for the rail industry to proactively safeguard against the risks of new technologies. Although diverse perspectives from various disciplines exist, these need to be brought together to enable a holistic approach to new technology analysis. Therefore, further research is required to identify the human factors issues that impact successful adoption of new technology to facilitate suitable selection, implementation and use within the rail industry.