Cameras in the driving cab

[100andthirty]

Interesting.

I'd say with Tramlink it was the wrong solution. The correct solution would have been something more ATP-esque to prevent a tram overspeeding or passing a signal at danger/red traffic light, and similarly a radar based system to stop a tram hitting another from behind in an area of "drive on sight" (as fitted to almost all new cars now). Probably it was cheaper?



Kirkby should have been physically impossible with a proper active train control system, whether the driver was texting his mate or not.

In Croydon, the Gaurdian system was installed in 2018, so there's 4 years of experience. As I understand it, the alert of first sent to the tram driver via a sound and vibrating the seat. The tram transmits info about the alert and a brief piece of video to Guardian's control centre who then communicate with the operator. There's no way for the camera to monitor continuously.

The technology is intended to per-empt incidents related to fatigue. Fatigue is a human condition which is not exactly the same as lack of sleep. In a recent description of another fatigue/illness monitoring system, the presented made the analogy of a merchant sea person who had been managing a ship in foul weather, sustained by food and caffeine. "Wide awake and terribly fatugued" was the conclusion.

Of course, all this depends on the culture of the organisation. If it's a "just culture" taht recognises that staff are the company's most valueable assets and want to help them look after their well being, then this is a vaulable tool. But if it's a company that either disciplines for the slightest mistake, or doesn't deal with the occasional 'lazy b*st*rd', then it'll be treated with suspicion. Absolute transparancy is as important as the 'tech'.

 

[irish_rail]

If there is no Union agreement then I'd say the trains fitted with this should be blacklisted and drivers should refuse to drive them. I wouldn't touch this with a barge pole I cannot believe drivers will just accept this if its not union agreed?!

 

[bengley]

If there is no Union agreement then I'd say the trains fitted with this should be blacklisted and drivers should refuse to drive them. I wouldn't touch this with a barge pole I cannot believe drivers will just accept this if its not union agreed?!

Unfortunately the document sent out has the aslef logo on so it's probably been agreed higher up.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The comparison immediately seems to me to fall apart though, as what safety devices are there in a tram cab? Maybe some sort of vigilance device? Forward facing CCTV to record all the pedestrians in Manchester trying their best to get run over? But no AWS, TPWS, ATP etc as trams are necessarily driven sort-of on sight at least on-street?

Those automated safety systems would still have greater benefit. Even with running on sight you can still have balise based speed limit enforcement, balise based signal enforcement and a car like radar system to avoid running into the back of the tram in front. As the Croydon crash tram was speeding, the former would have been guaranteed to prevent it, whereas stopping the driver dozing a bit may not have done, because something else could have distracted him instead.

Why not go for the systems that are guaranteed to prevent incidents rather than those that just might?

 

[bengley]

What about the incident at Kirkby? In that case the driver operated the DSD, reset the AWS warnings and did not trigger TPWS despite being distracted from the driving task. The full RAIB accident report is available here.

The first recommendation is about T1193:

I fully get why drivers would not want this system and the risk that it becomes another stick to beat drivers with. Expect most would agree the driver in the incident quoted actions were far below the acceptable standard and is obviously the exception rather than the rule. However, on the flip side the existing safety mechanisms did not prevent the incident and looking at possible technological advances rather than just adjustments to avoid a repeat incident seems sensible.

The industry should also look at whether there are alternative solutions that are less invasive could achieve the same goals. The fatigue element sounds the larger risk area, while roster changes and improved monitoring/self-reporting would help, a solution like this in addition when used properly and non judgmentally has the potential to identify real world risk areas/patterns that paper based assessment alone won't and alert drivers that they may be fatigued.

Kirkby wasn't fatigue, that was a naughty driver.

This isn't designed to monitor naughty drivers, it's for fatigue monitoring...

Except it also can monitor distraction events, so it is for naughty drivers too...

So really it's just getting inward facing CCTV in by a sly back door.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Unfortunately the document sent out has the aslef logo on so it's probably been agreed higher up.

I wonder will this see drivers moving from ASLEF to the RMT? I can't see the RMT accepting it!

Kirkby wasn't fatigue, that was a naughty driver.

This isn't designed to monitor naughty drivers, it's for fatigue monitoring...

Except it also can monitor distraction events, so it is for naughty drivers too...

So really it's just getting inward facing CCTV in by a sly back door.

Meanwhile the elephant in the room keeps strutting around making the floor vibrate - if you have a proper continuous ATP style system (I forget which ETCS level that is) Kirkby physically couldn't have happened.

 

[bengley]

I wonder will this see drivers moving from ASLEF to the RMT? I can't see the RMT accepting it!

As an ASLEF member at one of the affected companies at a currently non functioning branch (so I can't bring it up at branch) I will strongly consider leaving ASLEF if it's not resisted.

I wonder will this see drivers moving from ASLEF to the RMT? I can't see the RMT accepting it!



Meanwhile the elephant in the room keeps strutting around making the floor vibrate - if you have a proper continuous ATP style system (I forget which ETCS level that is) Kirkby physically couldn't have happened.

Also very true. ETCS will ultimately reduce the risk, though actually incidents of this kind are incredibly rare on the main line railway so I do think we are fighting a battle which isn't really there.

Fatigue certainly needs to be addressed, but not like this.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Fatigue certainly needs to be addressed, but not like this.

Agreed. Fatigue is a systemic problem mostly resulting from things like badly designed shift patterns and...dare I say it...rest day working (plus the odd medical issue, e.g. that Chiltern-LU near miss was caused by the driver having undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnoea, which is a medical screening failure). If a driver is sitting in the cab dozing off, then that system has got gaps in it which need addressing.

 

[bengley]

Agreed. Fatigue is a systemic problem mostly resulting from things like badly designed shift patterns and...dare I say it...rest day working. If a driver is sitting in the cab dozing off, then that system has got gaps in it which need addressing.

RDW is less of a problem for me than a 01.59 book on after a week of rest days.

A week of rest days should be followed by a relatively sociable shift to allow people to adjust more gently. Shouldn't be that hard in practice to roster in such a way.

 

[Bletchleyite]

RDW is less of a problem for me than a 01.59 book on after a week of rest days.

I've never done "true" shifts, but I've done work where I've had to get up at 0330 on a Monday morning for a flight every week for a reasonable period of time... I've never been properly awake after it having had a normal weekend.

A week of rest days should be followed by a relatively sociable shift to allow people to adjust more gently. Shouldn't be that hard in practice to roster in such a way.

That, and it might actually work for some to be on permanent shifts, which should be encouraged if they are, because that way your sleep pattern stays adjusted. It's hardly out of kilter with other employment to do that, e.g. posties and bin men always start at the crack of dawn. OK, you're limited as to how many people would choose an 0159 book-on, but plenty of people would choose 0500-0600 until lunchtime daily on a permanent basis (and others permanent evenings) - you've got your whole afternoon to yourself, in bed by 8-9pm or so and you'll be adjusted to it long term.

 

[mikeb42]

Those automated safety systems would still have greater benefit. Even with running on sight you can still have balise based speed limit enforcement, balise based signal enforcement and a car like radar system to avoid running into the back of the tram in front. As the Croydon crash tram was speeding, the former would have been guaranteed to prevent it, whereas stopping the driver dozing a bit may not have done, because something else could have distracted him instead.

Why not go for the systems that are guaranteed to prevent incidents rather than those that just might?

They would - but at what cost? Installing all that, especially retro-fitting, is likely enormously more expensive than sticking a camera in the cab and connecting it to a bit of compute power to do image processing and some AI. Almost all the cost in this niche application would probably be amortising the algorithm development*. The safety engineer's obligation is to get the maximum benefit from the resources they've got rather than those they wish they had.

However, the point I was trying to get at is that Croydon Tramlink's data is likely to be only weakly correlated with the results the same system will give on the mainline railway as the circumstances are so incomparable. My bet would be on the benefit being much more limited. That's before you take into account the cost of the unions going berserk at the proposal - with some justification.

*Though on reflection they may well/ought to be licensing algorithms developed for analogous and now quite widespread deployment in private and commercial road vehicles - so no obvious massive cost there either.

 

[irish_rail]

RDW is less of a problem for me than a 01.59 book on after a week of rest days.

A week of rest days should be followed by a relatively sociable shift to allow people to adjust more gently. Shouldn't be that hard in practice to roster in such a way.

Its up to drivers at TOCs such as yours participating in the trial to show up the system as being not worth the hassle. When half the depot demands accommodated turns not booking on before 7am or finishing after 9pm the powers that be will soon quietly bin it off. I can see the costs to TOCs as being absolutely massive at a time when the railway isn't exactly flush with cash. I for one would demand an accommodation link if I flagged up as being tired with this daft system. 7 til 3 every day would suit me nicely. Good luck covering all those unsociable hours though. And if Aslef are involved then I think its safe to say they will lose a fair few members but time will tell.

 

[bengley]

Its up to drivers at TOCs such as yours participating in the trial to show up the system as being not worth the hassle. When half the depot demands accommodated turns not booking on before 7am or finishing after 9pm the powers that be will soon quietly bin it off. I can see the costs to TOCs as being absolutely massive at a time when the railway isn't exactly flush with cash. I for one would demand an accommodation link if I flagged up as being tired with this daft system. 7 til 3 every day would suit me nicely. Good luck covering all those unsociable hours though. And if Aslef are involved then I think its safe to say they will lose a fair few members but time will tell

I work for the FOC involved in the trial where unsociable turns are very much the norm. I can definitely tolerate these unsociable hours but more needs to be done to roster a bit more considerately to those who are just coming off a long weekend etc.

 

[Tevion539]

Guardian is a system we used on national express. It's a system that is good when it works, but penalises you for sneezing or sometimes coughing. The amount of times ive received phone calls because I've sneezed, or even squinted because I had a headache whilst waiting for paracetamol to kick in. The idea is the footage is reviewed before action being taken, but often they ask questions first. This could end up being different on the rail if it's implemented, sure.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Guardian is a system we used on national express. It's a system that is good when it works, but penalises you for sneezing or sometimes coughing. The amount of times ive received phone calls because I've sneezed, or even squinted because I had a headache whilst waiting for paracetamol to kick in. The idea is the footage is reviewed before action being taken, but often they ask questions first. This could end up being different on the rail if it's implemented, sure.

Isn't this something they'd like to highlight? If you feel unwell, you are distracted pretty much by definition.

 

[ComUtoR]

A root problem with objection that nobody (so far) has addressed is this:

"Croydon Trams implemented attention and alertness monitoring technology after this accident and have noticed a 75% reduction in fatigue related events, a 40% reduction in the number of collisions arising from driver distraction, alongside a 316% increase in driver incident reporting – these are significantly positive safety benefits."

This, in isolation, looks incredible and something to be celebrated. However, it doesn't go into detail. Just implementing technology doesn't suddenly bring about those levels of change.

Did the tech gather lots of data that led to a roster change, did staff suddenly refuse trams because they were getting alerts, or did Drivers suddenly stop using their phones on the move because there was a camera ?

Was there a behavioural change or even a change in culture ?

I'm open minded but I'd want more specifics.

 

[whoosh]

Clearly the detail of these two statements needs to be gone into very carefully:





Don't think so, this is actually a fairly mature technology - it looks very similar to something that is already installed and/or available as an option on certain cars (I think it was available on later versions of my car) and I understand it provides alerts in a very timely fashion. It's the sort of thing that reduces insurance premiums.




I would have thought it more relevant to question the value of this over TPWS, which (AIUI) does actually intervene in the operation of a train. Regardless, if a particular driver generates a lot of alerts I would have thought that would be something that needs to be investigated and action taken.

Many cars now have systems to detect a driver becoming less attentive. Some are very basic, while others have cameras that recognise particular faces (so you can customise seat and other settings) but I still don't think actually captures or saves video.

I am not sure what the car might record that could be interrogated in the event of an accident, but perhaps any additional safety system for a train can be designed so it can warn a driver in the cab but not actually do anything more. Maybe only a second or third warning will actually be recorded on the data recorder.

The driver can then decide if they really are tired or need to report that they're no longer fit for duty.

A car can be pulled over at the next available point - lay-by, services, even over at the kerb if it isn't a 'clearway', whereupon the seat can be reclined to a suitable position and a 'power nap' instigated.
A car can have the windows lowered for fresh air.
A car can have the radio turned up.

A lorry has all the above, but some also have a bunk for a more effective, fully horizontal, power nap.

An aeroplane has a second crew member, who will supervise the aircraft in 'cruise' and allow for the first crew member to have a power nap for a few minutes. This is recognised fatigue mitigation tool.


A train has nowhere to pull over - a minute or two at a booked station call maybe, if not driver only, but the seat doesn't recline very far in comparison with a car seat.
Many trains do not have opening cab windows (180s are an example). Of those that do, many make loads of fatigue inducing noise - more noise than fresh air.
Radios or other music are not allowed.

It's like being in an isolation tank, very bored, either at, or having got up at, a very unsocial hour.

Also, more modern high speed trains have a lot less side visibility because someone in an office reckons you need to sit staring ahead all the time, and shouldn't have "distractions" at the side. This is very fatigue inducing actually, and when pinging along on green signals for miles and miles on end, it's actually beneficial to scan a wider area apart from an endless stream of fast approaching overhead wire masts.

 

[zwk500]

Meanwhile the elephant in the room keeps strutting around making the floor vibrate - if you have a proper continuous ATP style system (I forget which ETCS level that is) Kirkby physically couldn't have happened.

Speed Supervision comes in ETCS L1. The Germans are even looking at a L1 Limited Supervision, where the speed supervision equipment is only fitted on approach to high-risk areas like sharp curves and junctions.

However given the UK's current setup the level of intervention required for ETCS L1 is pretty much the same as ETCS L2, just with legacy signals left in place. It's sometimes actually cheaper to go to L2 because you don't need expensive signal proving and so on. For Merseyrail fitting ATP/ETCS L1 wouldn't be good value for money over just jumping straight to ETCS L2 (especially with the ATO potential).

 

[Ex-controller]

Honestly wonder what planet some TOCs are on. This has no chance of going ahead, drivers will bring the railway to a halt before this sees the light of day.

 

[Lockwood]

A (non rail) company I used to work for had in cab microphones. They were sold to us as being for our protection in the event of an accident - the audio somehow giving more information about an incident than the dash cam video...

Some advice I was given when I started was that if you ever wanted to talk about management with your crewmate, or have any kind of private chat, engine off and key out.

The audio had been used in the past in non-driving disciplinaries, with someone saying "I don't like Manager X" in the cab being used against them.



This is a different scenario than the fatigue cameras here, but I can understand the concerns about mission creep

 

[380101]

Its up to drivers at TOCs such as yours participating in the trial to show up the system as being not worth the hassle. When half the depot demands accommodated turns not booking on before 7am or finishing after 9pm the powers that be will soon quietly bin it off. I can see the costs to TOCs as being absolutely massive at a time when the railway isn't exactly flush with cash. I for one would demand an accommodation link if I flagged up as being tired with this daft system. 7 til 3 every day would suit me nicely. Good luck covering all those unsociable hours though. And if Aslef are involved then I think its safe to say they will lose a fair few members but time will tell.

It would be ridiculous for ASLEF not to get involved in these trials. Just because they are agreeing to the trial does not mean they are supportive of the equipment being introduced across the industry. All info I've heard so far from fairly reliable sources is that ASLEF expect this trial to highlight what they've been campaigning about for years is that the shift patterns, diagram content and lengths are all major contributing factors towards fatigue and that this bit of technology will not improve that.

There's been much comment over the last few months in the media about rail unions "must modernise" etc when in fact the case is ASLEF and RMT are often at the forefront of trialling new technologies to make their members jobs/roles easier/more comfortable/less fatiguing.

The notion that ASLEF members will leave to join RMT is also fanciful as I've yet to see RMT bother their arse for any driver who was daft enough to join them in my TOC!

 

[jfowkes]

I also don't like the fact that the technology won't intervene to bring the train speed down despite being used to determine what is and isn't a safety risk. I know it's for cost and performance reasons, but if it isn't worth the money to do it properly, are we really getting any value out of it at all?

You'd want to be sure that the system doesn't constantly trigger false positives, slowing or halting trains because a driver was sneezing or adjusting their glasses or something.

You could dial down the sensitivity and reduce the number of false positives, but then you risk false negatives which reduces its utility as a safety system.

In that context, if used at all it's probably better to keep it overly sensitive and use it as a monitoring tool.

 

[whoosh]

There was resistance to this system on Tramlink in 2017, and a ballot for strike action which was eventually resolved with an independent Professor of Ophthalmology called upon to assess any ill-effects and assurances made that no-one would be disciplined if identified as suffering from fatigue.

(On that last point though, can we just recap that in another thread, someone who regularly reads black box [on train data recorder] downloads stated they "made a note" when a driver was 0.1mph over the linespeed.)


The first four quoted passages are updates to not being consulted, and the system being switched on:

• Finn Brennan ASLEF District 8
• Aug 17, 2017

ASLEF dispute with Tram Operations ltd.


The ASLEF Executive Committee has decided to give Tram Operations Ltd formal notice that we are in dispute over the the introduction of new technology into driving cabs without agreement.

Without any advance consultation with your union reps, TOL has started to put new infrared devices, which will photograph drivers faces, into your cabs. There has been no discussion with us about the safety of this system or how it is to be used. Instead management have simply started installing this system and once again have had no regard to the views of their staff.

We have continually told TOL that their repeated failure to consult with reps is not acceptable. To introduce new equipment, without going through normal process of discussion and agreement shows total disregard for their staff.

This cannot be allowed to continue. ASLEF want a more effective vigilance device, and the introduction of a modern automatic tram protection system. But we have seen no evidence that the “Guardian” system would have done anything to prevent the terrible accident at Sandilands.

Instead of trying to target and scapegoat drivers, TOL should be trying to reduce fatigue by improving rosters and operating a fair culture that encourages reporting and offers genuine support to staff. Placing a camera in the cab just adds to the pressure and stress on drivers who are already been targeted by members of the public and threatened with disciplinary action for minor infractions.

That is why we are balloting our members for industrial action. It is long past time to tell TOL that we are no longer prepared to be treated this way. Ballot papers will be distributed over the coming weeks and must be returned by 10:00 hrs on Monday 18th September 2017.

Please make sure to Vote Yes and return your ballot paper.

•Finn Brennan, ASLEF District 8
•Sep 19, 2017
Tramlink members 95% vote in favour of action


ASLEF members on London Tramlink have voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action in the dispute over the introduction of intrusive new technology without agreement.

Our members returned a 95% vote in favour of strike action.

Safety is always our key priority but ASLEF have serious reservations about the system that Tramlink have started to implement. We are opposed to inwards facing cameras and do not believe that this would have prevented the accident last year. We believe cameras can be used to scapegoat individuals rather than deal with the real problems that cause accidents. Our members are also worried about the possible health implications of the device.

We have started discussions with Tramlink about a basket of measures to deal with the underlying problems of fatigue. There also needs to be serious changes to polices so that drivers who make genuine mistakes are supported rather than subject to harsh and unnecessary discipline.

ASLEF now have a mandate to announce strike action if and when that becomes necessary. Your Company Council reps will continue to report on progress in talks to the Executive Committee who will decide on the appropriate next steps.

• Finn Brennan ASLEF District 8
• Oct 24, 2017

Tramlink management to push ahead with "Guardian" despite safety concerns


This afternoon (Tuesday Oct 24th) your Company Council reps and I met with senior management at FirstTram Operations Ltd. We once again told them about the numerous reports from members about the symptoms experienced since testing of the “Guardian” device began. These range from headaches and dry eyes to potentially serious damage to eyes.

Management claimed that they are “100% confident” that the system is safe and that they do not believe that it could be responsible for the symptoms drivers are experiencing. They accepted that so far, 20 drivers have filled in incident reports. They said that to provide extra reassurance they intend to provide an eye health check to all drivers and that additional monitoring and checks on the “Guardian” device will take place in the cab.

They then told us that, although these additional steps have not yet been taken, they intend to switch the system on from tomorrow (Wednesday Oct 25th). We made clear that this was unacceptable to ASLEF and that we are completely opposed to this decision. Despite our position they intend to bring the system into full operation.

Our view is that the underlying issues that cause fatigue and distraction events need to be dealt with. Simply recording video clips of drivers is just an excuse not to install a proper automatic tram protection system.This system would have done nothing to prevent the terrible tragedy last year. It is a tokenistic attempt to be seen to "do something" while not dealing with the real issues

A report is now being provided to the ASLEF Executive Committee who will decide on the next steps we will take. There will then be a further update for members.

• Finn Brennan ASLEF DISTRICT 8
• Oct 27, 2017

ASLEF members on Tramlink to strike over safety concerns.


The ASLEF Executive Committee has given Tram Operations Ltd. notice that our members will strike for 24 hours on Monday Nov 13th and Wednesday December 6th.

This is because the company has put into tram cabs a device that shines infra-red light beams into drivers faces and has insisted on operating this system despite the numerous health and safety concerns of our members. Drivers have reported symptoms from headaches and dry eyes to blurred vision and potentially serious eye damage as a result of exposure to this device.

ASLEF wants to see a modern automatic tram protection system installed that would stop a vehicle if it was over speeding or if the driver became incapacitated.

This system does neither. Instead of making the tram network safer its puts the health of drivers at risk and does nothing to prevent accidents in the future.

Only an automatic tram protection system could have prevented an accident like the tragedy at Sandilands.

Instead of dealing with the underlying issues in its safety culture, First Group, which operates the tram service, is ignoring the concerns of its drivers. ASLEF want the introduction of this system halted until all the safety concerns of our members have been addressed.

The fifth passage is the resolution to the dispute, with the strikes called off, and proper consultation taking place:

• Finn Brennan ASLEF District 8
• Nov 7, 2017

Tramlink strike action suspended.

As a result of our announcement of strike action, a meeting took place at ACAS on Friday November 3rd.

At that meeting management agreed to commission a fully independent safety analysis of the “Guardian” system by an agreed independent expert. A Professor of Ophthalmology is being engaged to carry this out. If the report indicates there are any adverse health effects on drivers, the system will be switched off. The company will fully support any individual reporting symptoms who wants to have an independent medical examination.

A review into all the underlying issues that causes tiredness and fatigue is taking place with the involvement of an outside company, Clockwork. The company have accepted that changes will need to be negotiated with ASLEF. We will be tabeling a 35 hour week as part of these discussions.

TOL reconfirmed that the Guardian system has no facility to “spy” on drivers. It cannot be used to monitor activity in the cab or to record continuous video footage or still images. No disciplinary action will be taken against any driver that may be identified as suffering from fatigue.

All driver management policies are to be jointly reviewed to ensure there is a non-disciplinary approach to managing safety incidents. All existing warnings are to be reviewed.

On this basis the ASLEF Executive Committee has agreed to suspend the strike action called for Nov 13th to allow for these steps to be taken.

 

[357]

(On that last point though, can we just recap that in another thread, someone who regularly reads black box [on train data recorder] downloads stated they "made a note" when a driver was 0.1mph over the linespeed.)

Happens as standard at my TOC. It's pathetic.

Also holding buttons for 4.9 seconds instead of 5 and more....

I do feel a large part of the issue here is that drivers simply have no trust or faith in management anymore and feel like they are out to get us.

 

[theageofthetra]

Unfortunately my FOC is involved in this

The question brought up time and time again, OK a driver is tired after stupid o'clock starts all week and them a night job weekend (apparently allowed, as we alledgedly voted for this)
This device recognises your tired and "wakes you up"

The company in now complicite in recognising "and allowing" you to continue driving tired ??

Can we now have loops built so if we're tired we can pull over and have a nap ??

I completely I agree. I'd be asking who is complicit in agreeing such a ridiculous set of working patterns. Do they actually work them themselves?

 

[Tevion539]

Isn't this something they'd like to highlight? If you feel unwell, you are distracted pretty much by definition.

Well, think of it this way. If youre going down the motorway at 60mph and an emergency alarm is going off to say the doors are open when they aren't the entire way and you have no where to pull in and keep getting told to carry on. most would feel the strain. Not necessarily feeling unwell as such. I'm in no way making excuses, however the system is no where near perfect and quite often does give off a few false alarms.

My point is, the system works well, however if you ask most drivers, a lot feel it's more distracting having it. Especially if it's continuously going off for no apparent reason. Which it does. It's calabrated, but no everyone is the same height, has the same seating position or has the same facial structure. It *can* be flawed.

 

[theageofthetra]

There was resistance to this system on Tramlink in 2017, and a ballot for strike action which was eventually resolved with an independent Professor of Ophthalmology called upon to assess any ill-effects and assurances made that no-one would be disciplined if identified as suffering from fatigue.

(On that last point though, can we just recap that in another thread, someone who regularly reads black box [on train data recorder] downloads stated they "made a note" when a driver was 0.1mph over the linespeed.)


The first four quoted passages are updates to not being consulted, and the system being switched on:








The fifth passage is the resolution to the dispute, with the strikes called off, and proper consultation taking place:

What improvements to shift patterns, to mitigate fatigue were introduced off the back of that tragic incident?

 

[100andthirty]

As I recall it, ASLEF's concern were more about the possible affect on drivers of continuous infrared light which makes the driver visible to the sensor in all lighting conditions. This concern must have been resolved as the system is in service. Attached is a summer 2022 article in Rail Technology Magazine extensively quoted Jackie Townsend the MD of Tram Operations Ltd and talked about the impact the system has had on driver wellbeing. I don't know what the view is of the folk in the drivers' seats.

 

[43066]

If fatigue risk is so high, maybe they could try building rosters with less severe shift patterns (02.30 finishes one week, Saunday off, 02.30 starts next week anyone?), or employing more staff so drivers don’t have to work so many rest days. But it looks like they’re going for the spying option, and putting even more pressure on drivers.

Absolutely. I echo the comments above that, by the time someone is driving a train fatigued, it’s already far too late and safety has been compromised, so I have zero faith that this trial is doing to achieve anything useful. I also agree this is likely to be about getting a camera into the cab more than anything.

The industry has a pretty cack-handed approach to fatigue as we all know taking a “fatigue day” is generally frowned upon more than it should be, and TOCs will do anything they can to avoid admitting that fatigue has contributed to incidents. It’s crazy, when it’s known that fatigue reduced performance as much as being under the influence of alcohol (and we all know how seriously drug and alcohol policies are taken) that the standard industry shift patterns effectively make it impossible for drivers and other staff not to be regularly fatigued when they’re at work.

That is the elephant in the room that needs sorting out first.

I'd say with Tramlink it was the wrong solution. The correct solution would have been something more ATP-esque to prevent a tram overspeeding or passing a signal at danger/red traffic light, and similarly a radar based system to stop a tram hitting another from behind in an area of "drive on sight" (as fitted to almost all new cars now). Probably it was cheaper?

Yes. I suspect being seen to do something was the key driver there. Hence whether the measure taken is effective or not is largely irrelevant.

 

[100andthirty]

Happens as standard at my TOC. It's pathetic.

Also holding buttons for 4.9 seconds instead of 5 and more....

I do feel a large part of the issue here is that drivers simply have no trust or faith in management anymore and feel like they are out to get us.

That is horrific to hear. This sort of monitoring is being done by soemone who's a pedant*; worrying about things that don't matter in the round. The idea of the monitoring is to look for patterns of behaviour which can be used to have a performance discussion leading to improving performance.

*Moreover a pedant who doesn't understand the limitations of data recorders and the sensors that feed them. Worrying about 0.1 second variance in a button push is very much at the limit of what the recorder can record. In this example, a) the button may have been pushed for 5 seconds but only 4.9 seconds is recorded. This might be because the recorder only looks at the imputs on that circuit every 0.1 secs. As for speed, what is recorded is generally the speed that the axle, on which the speedometer's tachometer is located, is rotating. The speed of rotation is not recorded however, as this is converted into speed based on the diameter of the wheel and the compensation provided for varying wheel diameter as wheels wear. As an example, if a worn wheel has been changed for a new one and the diameter compensation is left for worn wheels, the train will be travelling faster than the indicated speed. However, if set correctly, the speed will be accurate on the day the train sets out from the depot and the speedometer will under-read actual speed as ther wheels wear.