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FREIGHT
Rail professionals, stakeholders, human factor experts, technical specialists and academics have come together to discuss the challenges and solutions to safe, high-performance operations. Dr David Golightly explains more
Human performance in the rail freight yard T
here are around 200,000 train movements across the UK every year, with just one incident having the potential to ruin the whole rail network and put people at risk. That is why the role and conditions of those working in the rail freight yard are vital to the smooth running of the whole network. But in the past, there have been few studies on human performance and the hurdles faced by workers, with each freight operating company having a slightly different method of working and training. In a bid to change this, the industry has recently come together to better understand the role of the people working at the front-end of operations, the ground staff and the wagon fitters. “If we are going to upscale operations within the rail freight industry, we need to start to think about what the impact of that will be on freight yard operations,” said Dr David Golightly, lecturer in Human Integration at Newcastle University. “The rail freight yard is a complex and challenging environment. It’s physically demanding work relying on quick decisions.”
Improving safety Dr Golightly specialises in human factors, looking at how people use technology, and how technology is designed with the end user in mind, so it makes it safer for them to do their work and supports their wellbeing. For the last two years, he has collaborated with David Ethell from the National Freight Safety Group (NFSG) and James Lonergan from the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB), looking at human performance in the rail freight yard. “I was very surprised that despite the importance of rail freight and getting trains safely out on the network, human performance aspects of operations in the freight yard (as opposed to driving) have, up to now, received little research attention,” he said. “Knowledge relating to tasks, competencies, and immediate and wider work environment pressures due to cultural, commercial or policy constraints have not been widely available, which is why this study is so important. The observational work over the last few years and shared knowledge of freight yard practices has evolved the understanding of how freight yard work may contribute to freight train incidents on the network.”
The work aims to understand human factors influencing freight train preparation and the Condition of Freight Vehicles on the Network (CFVN) and builds on recent work to understand site complexity, wagon maintenance and freight planning, capturing the human challenges and solutions for safe and high-performance freight operations. It has culminated in The Human Performance in the Rail Freight Yard seminar, hosted by Newcastle University, the National Freight Safety Group (NFSG) and the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) to deliver insight and risk management practices into safety and performance in the UK’s rail freight yards. Presentations and discussion first focused on the practicalities of working in the rail freight yard, the challenges for ground staff and the impact on the wider railway, with contributions from Dougie Hill (NFSG / RSSB), Marc Binney (DB Cargo), Rob McKittrick (Victa RailFreight), Peter Williams (Network Rail), Phil Hibberd (RSSB) and Devon Johnson (Freightliner Limited).
Left to right: Dr David Golightly, David Ethell and James Lonergan Images: Gravity PR
The rail freight yard is a complex and challenging environment. It’s physically demanding work relying on quick decisions
October 2023
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10/10/2023 11:51