Locomotive engineer safety with single manning operation

Abstract

ABSTRACT The paper is about practice, rather than research, and shows how a complex systems engineering project was done. The project was unique, involving a problem never before investigated, namely, to find the difference in occupational safety of a train driver between being alone in a locomotive cab and having an accompanying assistant. The project used a systems methodology discussed elsewhere. It required understanding the overall New Zealand Rail system and ensuring the objective was clear. A strategy was developed based on a set of system principles. Fault trees gave accident probabilities, from which relative values of Fatal Accident Frequency Rates were computed. As a practical simplification, detailed analysis was confined to a limited part of the overall rail system which could be taken as representative of the whole. Care was taken to treat input information as a whole rather than as separate unconnected items, emphasising information quality, which varied depending on type and source. Major points were the importance of (a) a clear and coherent strategy including careful system decomposition, (b) having a body of information of high and consistent quality, (c) fostering clarity and transparency in communication, and (d) having – and learning – good communication skills. This work is part of a Special Issue on Systems Perspectives: Clarity through Examples (see Dias 2023).