ABSTRACT
Worker fatigue may increase the probability of an accident. Whilst the hours of work of airline staff and HGV drivers are subject to prescribed limits, recent policy for UK railway safety critical staff adopts a different approach based on risk assessment principles. This means that a suitable and sufficient risk assessment should be carried out by a railway company before changes are made to existing hours or patterns of work.
This paper describes the development of guidance on conducting a fatigue risk assessment. A fatigue index has been proposed based on six key factors: time of day, time on task, rest breaks, shift variability, daily rest, and recovery between blocks of shifts. A simple additive model is used to combine ratings from each factor and the concept of a factor moving into a ‘red zone’ has been included. Initial feedback on the utility of this method is presented.
