New Challenges in Managing Staff Competency for a Driverless Urban Rail Transit System

Abstract

In order to fully realize the potential of Urban Rail Transit (URT) system in maintaining the viability of major cities, one of the key elements—the competency of staff operating the URT system—must be managed effectively. As driverless URT systems have the ability to achieve higher efficiency while still maintaining the required safety standard, more driverless URT systems are being built and operated. When an URT becomes driverless, the operating concept of the URT will become significantly different from that of an URT with drivers as well. This has resulted in new challenges to the management of staff competency for a driverless URT system. This paper started off with discussions of the Competency Curve and then used the driverless Singapore North East Line (NEL) as a study case to examine the two main challenges faced when managing staff competency in a driverless URT context: the manual driving of a driverless train, and the driverless train control in the Operating Control Center (OCC). Strategies towards the handling of the above-mentioned new challenges were proposed based on the experiences gained on the ground.