Improving level crossing safety through Human Factors Integration
Innovative technologies and solutions provide an opportunity to improve safety at level crossings, particularly for passive crossings in regional environments where road users currently receive no warning of approaching trains.
The Level Crossing Human Factors Integration (LX-HFI) Toolkit has been designed to support stakeholders and project teams to consider where Human Factors methods and expertise may be useful across the systems engineering project lifecycle to support the development, evaluation, and implementation of innovative solutions for level crossing safety.
The following videos have been developed to provide an overview of the benefits of Human Factors Integration (HFI) at level crossings, and to provide an overview of the contents of the LX-HFI Toolkit.
Videos go here
Human Factors Integration
What is Human Factors Integration?
The goal of Human Factors (also known as Ergonomics) is to understand and optimise individual, team, organisational, and system performance. This is achieved through the application of theories, principles and methods to influence the design and evaluation of products, tools, devices, tasks, vehicles, environments, training programs, procedures, policy and regulations in a manner that supports optimal human behaviour, system safety and system performance. Human Factors Integration (HFI) is the formal process that is used to implement Human Factors knowledge, expertise, principles, and methods throughout the project lifecycle. There are a range of benefits to HFI. A key benefit is cost reduction, whereby early Human Factors analysis can support identification of effective designs before a system is built, avoiding costly re-design when developed solutions are found to fail to meet user needs or acceptance. Additionally, HFI provides structured, defensible approaches to support safety-related decision making and demonstrate appropriate risk mitigation.
The project lifecycle
The project lifecycle adopted in the LX-HFI Toolkit is underpinned by the V-Model, a commonly applied systems engineering framework. The model has been adapted from the US Department of Transportation’s Systems Engineering Guidebook for Intelligent Transport Systems. The model defines the major phases that may be involved in the development and deployment of innovative technologies and solutions aimed at improving safety at regional level crossings in Australia. These technologies and solutions may include driver-based solutions (e.g., in-vehicle alerts or mobile-based warnings) or infrastructure-based systems (e.g., advance warning systems, obstruction detection) which could be deployed at either active or passive level crossings. The adopted lifecycle is divided into six sequential phases (Phases 0 through 5), spanning concept development to final decommissioning. While the V-Model can be interpreted to suggest a linear process, it is acknowledged that many development processes are iterative, especially in the early phases when exploring innovative solutions. Our model does not represent the full extent of iteration and feedback loops between phases. It should also be noted that various cross-cutting activities are vital across the process. These activities include project management practices, interdisciplinary collaboration including technical, Human Factors, and project management expertise, as well as risk management, amongst others.
Adapting the toolkit
It is understood that organisations may adopt different project lifecycle models depending on their structure, scope, or jurisdictional requirements and that decision gates may be utilised at various points. Further, it is understood that some organisations or stakeholders may only become involved at selected phases such as during design, testing, or deployment rather than across the entire lifecycle. The LX-HFI Toolkit intends to provide a comprehensive approach that can be aligned to other lifecycle processes or adapted as needed. More information about the phases and suggested HFI activities for each phase is available by clicking on the phases of the V-Model in the toolkit.
We acknowledge the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts and their influence on developing this toolkit.