Network performance impacts on operators in safety-critical systems

Safety-critical wide area networks are comprised of human and technical elements cooperatively performing tasks in a safety-critical setting. In such settings, both human and technical dimensions are critical in performance evaluation. It is the relationships between changes in network performance and their impacts on human operator performance with safety-critical wide area networks that we investigate in this research. The paper begins by examining the theoretical background for this research, and then describes the research model. It was found that decreases in network reliability were associated with expected degradations in operator satisfaction, operator confidence, and increases in operator workload. Likewise, it was found that an increased number of network tasks processed was associated with a decrease in operator accuracy and decreased operator communication. The results of this study suggest that understanding the impact of the network performance on human performance is important in safety-critical settings employing wide-area networks.