A Proposition of Accident Causation Model for the Analysis of Human Error Accidents in Railway Operations

In accident analysis, it is essential to understand the causal pathways of the accident. Although numerous accident models have been developed to help analysts understand how and why an accident occurs, most of them do not include all elements related to the accident in various fields. Thus analysis of human error accidents in railway operations using these existing models may be possible, but inevitably incomplete. For a more thorough analysis of the accidents in railway operations, a more exhaustive model of accident causation is needed. This paper briefly reviews four recent accident causation models, and proposes a new model that overcomes the limitations of the existing models for the analysis of human error accidents in railway operations. In addition, the usefulness and comprehensiveness of the proposed model is briefly tested by explaining 12 railway accident cases with the model. The proposed accident causation model is expected to improve understanding of how and why an accident/incident occurs, and help prevent analysts from missing any important aspect of human error accidents in railway operations.