ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a brief history of task analysis from its first conception in the early 1900s. It discusses the task analysis that has been used extensively in many industries such as aviation, air traffic control, automotive, product design and military operations and although not as widely used in the rail industry, it has been employed for a variety of different purposes. Although a thorough evaluation of a technology should ideally be conducted by an experienced human factors practitioner, someone without human factors expertise can gather useful information from a task analysis. The chapter explains what a task analysis is, how it has been used in the rail industry and how it can be used in the design and evaluation of new technologies. The obvious advantage of cognitive task analyses is that they can determine and describe the cognitive elements that underlie operators' goals and decision-making.
