Human, Organisational and Societal Factors in Robotic Rail Infrastructure Maintenance

David Golightly,Jamie Chan-Pensley,Nastaran Dadashi,Amanda Hall,Shyma Jundi,Brendan Ryan

doi:10.3390/su14042123

David Golightly, Jamie Chan-Pensley + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su14042123

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Abstract

Robotics are set to play a significant role in the maintenance of rail infrastructure. However, the introduction of robotics in this environment requires new ways of working for individuals, teams and organisations and needs to reflect societal attitudes if it is to achieve sustainable goals. The following paper presents a qualitative analysis of interviews with 25 experts from rail and robotics to outline the human and organisational issues of robotics in the rail infrastructure environment. Themes were structured around user, team, organisational and societal issues. While the results point to many of the expected issues of robotics (trust, acceptance, business change), a number of issues were identified that were specific to rail. Examples include the importance of considering the whole maintenance task lifecycle, conceptualizing robotic teamworking within the structures of rail maintenance worksites, the complex upstream (robotics suppliers) and downstream (third-party maintenance contractors) supply chain implications of robotic deployment and the public acceptance of robotics in an environment that often comes into direct contact with passenger and people around the railways. Recommendations are made in the paper for successful, human-centric rail robotics deployment.

Highlights

Rail infrastructure requires maintenance to ensure continuous availability and safe performance
Robotics have an important role to play in the safe, effective maintenance of the railways
The design and deployment of robotics must be approached in a manner that takes into account the needs of users, teams of people working with and around the robot, organisational factors and societal factors

Summary

Introduction

Rail infrastructure requires maintenance to ensure continuous availability and safe performance. This work occurs in a potentially hazardous environment, where track workers need protection from nearby service or engineering trains [1,2] It can take place in remote or difficult to access locations such as tunnels, at night and in poor weather [3,4,5] and requires complex communications that are prone to error [6]. The technology is developed purely with a view to meeting technical or functional needs, and users of the technology are required to learn how to use it and adapt around it. The technology provides an initial advantage in reducing workload, but, over time, mechanisms ( automated mechanisms that were intended to assist work) drive new expectations of performance and capacity or new levels of reliance on technology that was only originally intended to assist [28,29]

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