Task Load Analysis of the Railway Traffic Signaller

철도 관제사 직무부하 분석

According to the result of recent studies, it was revealed that the error of safety-related personnel still plays a significant role in the accidents and/or incidents of a railway system. Accordingly, in order to reduce as well as prevent human errors, it is necessary to: (1) identify the root cause of accidents/incidents, and (2) conduct a research that can provide a systematic as well as an effective way to deal with the identified human errors. To this end, it is essential to suggest appropriate countermeasures based on the result of a task load analysis, which can soundly reduce a high level of the task load put on safety-related personnel. In the light of this concern, about the tasks of railway traffic signallers, a detailed task analysis was conducted in this study. After that, the associated task load scores were quantified by NASA-TLX technique that is one of the most well-known subjective workload measurement techniques. As a result, a set of significant tasks that could put a high task load on railway traffic signallers was identified.