Fundamental examination of mental workload in the rail industry

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in rail human factors. The sometimes conflicting requirements of safety, reliable performance, quality of operations and effective use of limited capacity have meant that managers and engineers across all companies in the rail network have realized the importance of understanding and designing for human factors in train driving, signalling and control, maintenance, planning, etc. One key concern has been with workload, particularly mental workload, and especially in signalling and driving. This paper is concerned with a fundamental examination of what workload means in relation to the railways and especially signalling work and with a need to develop an appropriate suite of tools for the practical assessment of workload. In order to do this, the basic literature has been revisited in order to propose a conceptual framework of mental workload in the rail industry. Subsequently, a suite of workload tools has been proposed and is being used in practice; this is also described in this paper.