Track Work Research Articles

Mobilizing a Kingdom During a Pandemic: The Health Marketing Campaigns Applied by the Saudi Ministry of Health to Promote (COVID-19) Vaccine Confidence and Uptake.

COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy is threatening the global intended herd immunity. Social marketing integration rocketed in promoting public health through awareness campaigns.Saudi Arabia was one of the countries that used social marketing to promote COVID-19 vaccinations for all age groups through successive campaigns. This study aims to describe the content of the campaigns held by the Saudi Ministry of Health to promote COVID-19 vaccine uptake. A track's working strategy was created to contain COVID-19 spread in Saudi Arabia followed by a vaccination track. Six tracks were maintained over six months extended from June 2020 to December 2020. As a result, different campaigns were launched, and key performance indicators were identified and collected. Data from campaigns and key indicators were collected to determine outreach and impact. Five campaigns were initiated receiving high interactions from governmental entities and the public. The individuals' percentage who received full vaccination doses and booster vaccinations increased. Moreover, the last campaign promoting vaccinations in children achieved a 60% willingness rate among adults to vaccinate their children. COVID-19 awareness campaigns achieved successful outcomes in Saudi Arabia and currently the Kingdom sustained higher vaccination proportions than the average vaccination attainment worldwide.

A Privacy-Aware Tracking and Tracing System

The ability to track and trace assets in the supply chain is becoming increasingly important. In addition to asset tracking, the technologies used provide new opportunities for collecting and analyzing employee position and biometric data. As a result, these technologies can be used to monitor performance or track worker behavior, resulting in additional risks and stress for employees. Furthermore, contact tracing systems used to contain the COVID-19 outbreak have made positive patients' privacy public, resulting in violations of users' rights and even endangering their lives. To resolve this situation, a verifiable attributebased encryption (ABE) scheme based on homomorphic encryption and zero-knowledge identification (ZKI) is proposed, with ZKI providing anonymity for data owners to resist tracking attacks and homomorphic encryption used to solve the problem of privacy leakage from location inquiries returned from a semi-honest server. Finally, theoretical security analysis and formal security verification show that our scheme is secure against the chosen plaintext attack (CPA) and other attacks. Besides that, our novel scheme is efficient enough in terms of user-side computation overhead for practical applications.

Full scale experimental tests to evaluate the train slipstream in tunnels

The train slipstream, i.e. the air velocity induced by the train, is one of the most important aerodynamic effects connected to railway vehicles because it has a direct impact on the safety of passengers on the platform and track workers along the railway line. In recent years, a lot of studies were performed to understand the development of this phenomenon in open field, and specific EU standards, the EN 14067–4 and the TSI were issued. Instead, only few studies have been carried out to analyse the train slipstream in confined spaces (as tunnels, line sections with acoustic barriers, etc.), even though the first results of these analyses have shown that the confinement of the air causes more severe conditions regarding the speed of the air flow. This work aims at studying, through a full-scale experimental campaign, the effects on the air flow speed caused by the train passage. The effects of different train parameters (i.e. train type and length, etc.) and infrastructure parameters (i.e. geometry variations) were analysed. Lastly, the results of a specific test considering the presence of a stationary train inside the tunnel while another train is passing are described, to simulate scenarios of ordinary railway traffic.

Harnessing BIM with risk assessment for generating automated safety schedule and developing application for safety training

The construction industry accounts for 24.20% of all accidents in India, resulting in almost 75 accidents daily. Every construction job involves certain risk levels, often resulting in losses such as fatalities, compensation costs, man-hour loss, work delays, and ergonomic disorders in workers. Poor site safety management and hesitation towards adopting new methods and technologies often result in inefficient workflow, accidents, and inferior productivity. All these factors pile up, causing a surge in indirect costs, almost four times direct costs. The Indian construction industry employs 51 million workers but has only 4% formally trained workforce. Safety planning is currently considered a 'secondary' task due to insufficient safety budget, lack of well-defined training modules and modern tools, unawareness about underlying hazards, etc. The current study is an attempt to identify and assess underlying activity-based hazards using the Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) approach by harnessing the potential of digital tools such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Visual Scripting in Dynamo v.2.10 to facilitate automation in generating 'Safety Schedule' in coordination with the project schedule. This study presents a novel idea of proactive safety planning, enabling workers and managers to foresee possible hazards associated with ongoing activity. Further, a worker training tracker prototype is developed in Microsoft Visual Studio using C# to store and track workers' safety training information. Managers can use this tracker to review workers' competence and ensure that they would have received appropriate role-based safety training. The applicability and effectiveness of the proposed method are demonstrated through a case study project.

Sound propagation and audibility of train horns

Horn sound levels and sound propagation along the track were investigated to understand the relationship between standardised tests at 25 metres and audibility in practice. Sound levels from a static horn above a test track decayed by 6 dB per doubling of distance (6 dB/dd) up to about 30 or 50 metres, depending on the horn height. At greater distances the level decayed by approximately 12 dB/dd. At 400 metres, the sound level from a horn 2.5 metres above the ground was about 10 dB higher than the level from the horn 0.5 metres above the ground, although the levels at 25 metres were the same. The audibility and the effective range of a horn depends on its height. At two rural mainline sites, with line speeds of 160 km/h and 200 km/h, the mean attenuation rates beyond 90 metres were 10.7 and 9.2 dB/dd respectively. At the first site, horn sound levels were highly correlated with distance. At the second site, with newer trains, horn levels were poorly correlated, suggesting some variability in horn sound levels at source. Track workers ratings of the audibility of the horns were compared to horn levels recommended by Detectsound and by ISO 7731.

An Approach to Designing and Specifying Audibility Requirements of Train Activated Warning Systems

Train Activated Warning Systems (TAWS) use an audible warning to alert track-workers of an oncoming train. TAWS emits a safe-tone sound to indicate the system is active. When a train approaches, the safe tone switches to a warning-tone in enough time to allow track workers to reach a position of safety. There is currently no specific methodology for designing a new TAWS system to achieve the required audibility over a defined area of track. This paper presents an approach to the design and specification of TAWS audibility over lengths of track where different prevailing acoustic environment conditions need to be considered. The challenges encountered and the limitations of the resulting approach are discussed.

Wage and Employment Impact of Minimum Wage: Evidence from Lithuania

This paper evaluates the worker-level effects of a historically large and permanent increase in the minimum wage in Lithuania. Our identification strategy leverages variation in workers’ exposure to the new minimum wage, and exploits the fact that there has been no increase in the minimum wage in previous years, to account for heterogeneous labor market prospects of low-wage workers relative to high-wage workers. Using detailed administrative records to track workers before and after the policy change, we show that the minimum wage hike significantly increased the earnings of low-wage workers. This direct effect was amplified by wage spillovers reaching the median of the pre-policy income distribution. Overall, we find no negative effects on the employment prospects of low-wage workers. However, we provide suggestive evidence that young workers, highly exposed municipalities, and tradable sectors may be more negatively affected. In contrast, labor market concentration or the presence of envelope wages appear to be associated with lower job losses. Taken together, our findings imply an employment elasticity with respect to the minimum wage of −0.021, and an own-wage elasticity of −0.033, suggesting that wage gains dominated employment losses.

Smart tools for railway inspection and maintenance work, performance and safety improvement

The rail sector faces significant challenges as a wide variety of heterogeneous working methods, the continued raising of the workforce average age, and the lack of young workers interested in such physically demanding work. STREAM supports LEAN execution of intelligent inspection and maintenance processes promoting and implementing technologies to improve safety, prevent incidents and accidents, and support workers in maintenance activities. The ambition is to significantly enhance operational planning, safety, and performance while causing little change to current work processes. STREAM contributes to two leading technologies: The OTA3M, a control platform adapted to existing excavators that provides autonomous multi-purpose operations enabling safe worker-machine collaboration. The MMPE is a modular multi-tasking exoskeleton developed to assist track workers during heavy activities.

Authority gradients between rail network controllers, train crew and track workers in Australia and New Zealand: motivations and behaviours

The underlying relationship dynamics leading to authority gradients between frontline rail workers are being overlooked despite rail incident investigation reports pointing to the contrary. The aim of this study was to understand how the power disparities across multidisciplinary rail frontline workers can lead to authority gradients from the perspective of network controllers—the group at the apex of the operational hierarchy. A scenario generation technique was used to scaffold interviews with 55 rail network controllers from eight organisations across Australasia and identify how they perceived risky situations with all data thematically analysed. Authority gradient generation was found to be defined through: (1) motivations for network controllers to retain a position of authoritarianism toward train crew and track workers; and (2) behaviours that reinforced a power differential by curtailing their empowerment. Network controllers feared the probability and consequence of error and mistrusted in the capabilities of train crew and track workers, questioning their honesty, levels of competence, and believing they wanted to inherently cut corners. These motivations created a contemptuous regard that bred hostility and disparaging language, and engendered intimidation tactics where network controllers acted punitively and pressured train crew and track workers into compliance. The results from the scenarios point to perceptions of risk as the catalyst for fear and mistrust, with heightened perceptions of risk associated with increased vigilance and hostility across groups. This insight into how authority gradients are generated across operational teams in rail provides a new dimension to understanding teamwork error.

Technological Change before Globalization

Though the world-systems school has argued that globalization has been a long process over the last five centuries, globalization is often only synonymous with the late twentieth century. Globalization has gained a lot of attention in the context of declining blue-collar job sectors, but the technologies that enabled it had already displaced workers on U.S. railroads. To bridge both schools, railroads are the perfect setting for this study since it’s at the intersection of race, labor, technological changes, and globalization. Mexicans once accounted for ninety percent of track workers in the U.S. Southwest, but after gaining higher wages by the early 1950s, most of their jobs were lost to automation by the 1960s. While faster and larger cargo ships and railroads in recent decades have been synonymous with globalization, the technologies and infrastructure didn’t enable that global process until the 1970s at the earliest. Technological changes eliminated more jobs on the tracks before 1970 than to globalization since. Globalization was not possible without those technological changes.

Noise as a Criterion for Designating Sanitary Protection Zones of Traffic Arteries

The article is devoted to the study of a possibility of designating the boundaries of sanitary zones (distancing) for traffic arteries outside settlements within the right-of-way.The study was conducted regarding the current Russian laws, projects of possible changes in legislation and draft amendments. It offers definitions of the right-of-way and of sanitary zone and highlights topics that have not yet been regulated.At the same time, the research methods are of universal character and after introducing other regulatory parameters may be applied for similar research in other countries as well.Calculations and field studies allowed to find that within the railway right-of-way and with the existing train traffic intensity, equivalent continuous sound pressure level in aggregate does not exceed the established maximum permissible level of 80dBA for personnel performing their labour functions within the railway rightof-way.A growth in the Leq/LAeq on the right-of-way from 80,0 to 95,0 dBA may lead to an increase in the hazard class (subclass).An analysis of the actual results of a special assessment of working conditions at JSC Russian Railways showed in the vast majority of cases the acceptability of working conditions evaluated according to noise factor measured at the workplaces of employees working during full or part-time shift on the right-of-way. Hazardous working conditions at the level of some subclasses for certain professions (operator of track measurement, railway track worker) arise rather due to indicators of severity of the labour process.

Estimation of the influence of the parameters of segments of variable rigidity of the transport link on vibration impact during repair works

This paper discusses the issues of additional vibration impact on workers involved in technological repair processes in areas of variable stiffness in front of bridge crossings, which are found on roads and railways. The statement of the problem used in this case involves the construction of a model of a section of variable stiffness as an anisotropic flat structure, the natural vibration frequencies of which can vary depending on the state of the road, the level of groundwater, corresponding, for example, to melting snow in spring. The proposed model makes it possible to take into account not only the state of the highway and its modes of operation, but also the influence of the water and hydrological regime on the natural oscillation frequency of the road section in front of the artificial structure, this will help to correctly draw up technological maps of repair work, taking into account track machines and small-scale mechanization, which dynamic impacts on the superstructure and embankment during repair work. The obtained frequencies of natural vibrations can be compared with the frequencies of external dynamic forces and evaluated in terms of the joint effect on the worker. The approach tested in the work can be applied both in the development of algorithms for monitoring and diagnosing transitional sections, which is important due to the difficulties of visual inspection of such structures and stiffness parameters at different times of the year, and in the development of technological processes for repair work from the point of view of rational organization of labor and recreation for track workers and the development of preventive measures to reduce vibration.

Improving railway maintenance schedules by considering hindrance and capacity constraints

The availability of railway networks is important for society and the economy. To keep the infrastructure in good condition, regular maintenance is needed. Regular maintenance is achieved by devising maintenance schedules that assign safe work zones to crews executing preventive maintenance activities. This study aims to optimize the maintenance schedules for both train operators and maintenance contractors, by considering (a) hindrance for parked passenger trains and planned freight trains, and (b) the workload for track workers. Further, maintenance operations are distinguished into different engineering fields (switches, straight tracks, and overhead wiring) since this influences the amount of hindrance. The method presented for designing maintenance schedules is a novel mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model that considers these aspects. In our Dutch case study, we assess our new scheduling model and show that large improvements can be made in terms of mean workload for work crews and total hindrance for train operators. We also assess the computational costs when using exact (branch-and-bound) or metaheuristic solution methods for solving networks with up to 25 work zones.

Экспериментальные исследования уровней звукового давления на рабочих местах операторов средств малой механизации при шлифовании рельсов

Intensive wear of rails in curves significantly reduces their service life, reduces the efficiency of operational work. A promising direction in solving this problem is the technology of rail grinding, which allows mechanical processing of the rail head without dismantling them in the conditions of a railway track. The article presents the results of studies of the noise impact on track workers when grinding rails by means of small mechanization-a rail-grinding machine SH-1, a grinding machine 2152D and a manual machine for grinding rails MRSH3. The analysis of various layouts of rail grinding machines, their features, technical characteristics and octave levels of sound pressure when these machines are running at idle and under load was carried out. According to the results of experimental studies, graphical dependences of the sound pressure levels of rail grinding machines are constructed, the excess of the noise level over the permissible sanitary standards in the area of rail grinding by means of small mechanization is revealed.

Caught between a rail and a hard place: a two-country meta-analysis of factors that impact Track Worker safety in Lookout-related rail incidents

The last 15 years has witnessed a surge in rail-related human factors research but little has examined the Track Worker role. Track work often takes place whilst trains are running under the protection of Lookouts who provide warning of approaching trains. Despite—or perhaps because of—these measures, there is a notable prevalence of incidents involving Lookouts, warranting a closer look at the nature of their task and the wider sociotechnical system (STS) to identify what may be learned for railway safety management. A systematic review of incident reports involving Lookouts was undertaken on Australian and UK rail incidents from 2006 to mid-2018 with a qualitative meta-analysis (n = 31) revealing nine factors corresponding with STS dimensions at the organisational, social, task and individual level. Much of the risk lay in the set up and implementation of Lookout working, and in Track Worker group dynamics—factors endemic to working whilst trains are running—rather than specific to the Lookout, with such factors arguably applicable across other Track Worker groups. Findings point to a need for more targeted research into the STS aspects of track working, as well as improving the training and/or procedures of those managing the Lookout protection system of work.

Effect of wearing hearing protectors on the audibility of railway warning signals – an experimental study

The effect of wearing hearing protectors on the audibility of warning signals has been evaluated for three specific railway-related jobs: track workers, train drivers and platform agents. Masked thresholds were measured in the laboratory, on railway agents with normal hearing, using warning signals and background noises typical of each job. Out of the 36 situations tested in total, statistical analyses showed that wearing earplugs improves the perception in 11 situations, deteriorates the perception in 10 situations and has no significant effect in 15 situations (as compared to no hearing protector). The deteriorations essentially concern signals which have no (or not enough) energy in the low-frequency range (f< 1500 Hz) when they have to be heard in background noises which dominate in the low-frequency range. To prevent the deteriorations, these signals could be modified by adding some energy in the low-frequency range (f< 1500 Hz).

Harmonising training and development across an industry: the case of Australian rail

PurposeThis paper aims to explore why harmonisation, given its potential, is so difficult to achieve. It analyses the issues and challenges in achieving harmonisation of training and development across an industry.Design/methodology/approachThe approach was a meta-analysis of six research projects undertaken in the Australian rail industry. These projects varied in duration from 12-24 months. Between 2009 and 2013, rail employees in varying roles and levels of seniority, including middle managers, front-line supervisors, rail incident investigators, track workers and drivers, were interviewed (n = 176) and surveyed (n = 341).FindingsThe meta-analysis identified a range of characteristics associated with harmonisation. It uncovered three categories of harmonisation, seven types of risk modelled in a layered risk pyramid and analysed key structural, environmental and organisational barriers to harmonisation. The paper concludes that harmonisation struggles to gain strategic significance and is hampered by operational pragmatism.Research limitations/implicationsThere are few published papers examining harmonisation across companies or based on meta-analyses, especially qualitatively. Despite limitations of insufficient detail to allow close analysis, potentially variable quality data across projects from which to develop a meta-analysis and the danger of comparing apples with oranges, more attempts using this approach would be helpful in gaining nuanced insights into an industry.Practical implicationsAchieving industry harmonisation requires significant change in the mindset of executives. To enhance the chances of harmonisation, there is need for a strong national entity with overview of the entire industry, high-quality training and development resources and activities and cost-benefit analyses and active campaigns. A major outcome of this research is the risk pyramid, which can be used by managers as a strategic evaluation tool. By using such tools based on sound research, leaders can be equipped to make informed decisions and reduce downstream risks.Originality/valueThis research has value in extending the literature in two main ways: through examining the notion of harmonisation across an industry as distinct from within organisations that has been the focus of most studies and through using qualitative meta-analysis in a field dominated by quantitative approaches. It analyses the grey areas between rhetoric about its potential and difficulties in its achievement.

Developing Safety Management Systems for Track Workers Using Smart Phone GPS

When performing railroad maintenance work on the railroad, the train watchmen give information of train access to railroad maintenance workers by radio through hand-signals and/or a radio. These existing methods have the possibility of making errors of information delivery due to weather situation, work structures or obstacles, and because railroad maintenance workers usually concentrate on their work, many chances are that they would not recognize the access of trains. In order to reduce the risk of railway traffic accidents of death and injury for track workers, this paper has developed a system that notifies track workers of train approaching information by combining the GPS location providing function of the smart phone and a notification system. The developed system does not need the construction of an independent wireless communication system, and is designed to notify track workers of train approaching information by using a simple Bluetooth module and safety jackets. Also, the system establishes a simple communication possible by using the bluetooth equipped in the smart phone between the alarm system and smart phones. If the proposed system is in use, it is expected that it can contribute to the prevention and reduction of railroad accidents of railroad maintenance workers by preventing accidents of railroad maintenance workers and securing their safety.

Keeping track workers safe: a socio-technical analysis of emerging systems and technology

Track maintenance work is one of the most hazardous jobs in the rail industry. Track workers are in danger of being fatally injured by rail traffic either on the track they are working on or on adjacent tracks. The rail industry has developed many safe working procedures and protection systems to minimise the risk. The Australian rail industry is now trialling new technology that automatically warns the track workers of approaching trains. These technologies may be added to or ultimately replace the current safe working procedures. As there are different products and technologies available for track worker protection it is not clear which technology is best for the Australian rail environment. The CRC for Rail Innovation project ‘R3.120-Track Worker Protection Technology’ aims to identify and compare systems that improve protection for track workers. Commercially available systems use different types of technologies and have different safety integrity levels. The effectiveness of a safety system is not only dependent on the technology but also the track workers who operate and are protected by the system. Short-term trials may not highlight all issues across the systems’ life cycle so to analyse these socio-technical systems in a relatively short time period a specifically adapted hazard and operability (HAZOP) study is being undertaken. The HAZOP study evaluates both the technical and human factor aspects of the system utilising an expert team. Initially one of the commercially available track worker protection systems was selected as the base for the HAZOP and other track worker protection systems will be analysed based on the issues identified with the initial system. This paper discusses the ‘Track Worker Protection Technology’ project, the track worker protection technology that is available and the adapted HAZOP used to analyse a track worker safety system as a socio-technical system.

Comparative assessment of cardiometabolic risk factor role in high-stress occupations

Aim. To investigate the components of metabolic syndrome (MS) and to evaluate the role of cardiometabolic risk factors (RFs) in high-stress vs. low-stress occupations, in order to enable early diagnostics of the most important factors. Material and methods. In total, 299 men were examined (mean age 43,25±7,75 years). Group I worked as train drivers (n=185), while Group II included railway track workers (n=114). All participants underwent clinical examination, measurement of body mass index, waist circumference (WC), office blood pressure (BP), blood glucose, and lipid profile. MS was diagnosed according to the criteria by IDF (2005), ATP III (2005), and the Society of Cardiology of the Russian Federation (2009). Results. Group I, compared to Group II, demonstrated higher prevalence (p&lt;0,05) of smoking (+22%); abdominal obesity (AO), as denoted by WC ≥94 cm (+28%) or WC 94-102 cm (+16%); elevated systolic BP, SBP (+36%); total cholesterol, TCH (+12%) and very low density lipoprotein cholesterol, VLDL-CH (+16%). The most prevalent combination of MS components among individuals in a high-stress occupation was AH and AO. In Group I, MS prevalence ranged from 30% to 49% (p&lt;0,05) and was 2,5-2,7 times higher than in Group II (p&lt;0,001). Conclusion. Individuals in high-stress occupations demonstrated high prevalence of cardiometabolic RFs and MS. Based on strict MS criteria, early preventive measures among people in high-stress occupations should target individuals with WC 94-102 cm combined with other cardiovascular RFs.