Investigating Human Error Within GoA-2 Metro Lines

The rail industry is progressing towards higher levels of automation and autonomy. Other industries, e.g. aviation, have discovered ‘ironies of automation’ where the reduction in workload actually contributes to unsafe events. The rail industry will not be immune from such issues as reductions in the complexity of workload often leads to work becoming mundane and routine. Further, without the need to be constantly reacting to their surroundings, drivers are ill-equipped to break the monotony to address anomalies which can lead to accidents. Such problems can arise in the transition from GoA-1 to GoA-2 and should lead to a rethink of system design, not to place blame on drivers. However, this redesign needs to consider both human workload and the system itself. The paper is a preliminary analysis of the challenges of increasing automation and identifies potential solutions such as reworking the transition by increasing the workload placed upon the driver within GoA-2 systems, increasing stress but decreasing monotony by making work non-routine and thus retaining driver attention. This is a positive trade-off and may be the cheapest and most effective solution, that isn’t simply the transition to GoA-3.