Methodological Approach for Performing Human Reliability and Error Analysis in Railway Transportation System

Abstract—Today, billions of dollars are being spent annually world wide to develop, manufacture, and operate transportation system such trains, ships, aircraft, and motor vehicles. Around 70 to 90 percent of transportation crashes are, directly or indirectly, the result of human error. In fact, with the development of technology, system reliability has increased dramatically during the past decades, while human reliability has remained unchanged over the same period. Accordingly, human error is now considered as the most significant source of accidents or incidents in safety-critical systems. The aim of the paper is the proposal of a methodological approach to improve the transportation system reliability and in particular railway transportation system. The methodology presented is based on Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) and Human Reliability Analysis (HRA).