Quantitative relationship between time margin and human reliability

Abstract

Operator reliability in complex systems is influenced by various performance shaping factors (PSFs). Time is a particularly important PSF; however, empirical studies of human reliability analysis (HRA) are rarely focused on modeling the effect of time PSF on human error probability (HEP). This study contributes to HRA literature by investigating the empirical relationship between time margin and HEP. Time margin is defined as the difference between the time available to complete a task and the time required to successfully complete the task, divided by the required time. We investigate and compare two models (logistic and linear) to explain HEP based on time margin. The empirical HEP data for model testing were extracted from a microworld simulator (Study 1) and a full-scope simulator (Study 2) in two existing studies relevant to procedural tasks in nuclear power plants. For Study 1, both models exhibited an acceptable, equivalent explanatory power; for Study 2, although both models exhibited an acceptable explanatory ability, the logistic model explained more variance in HEP. Our findings indicate the potential of the logistic model in explaining and predicting HEP based on time margin in time-critical tasks.