Decreases in Collision Risk and Derailments Attributed to Changing At-Risk Behavior Process at Union Pacific
Changing At-Risk Behavior (CAB) is a safety process that is being conducted at Union Pacific’s San Antonio Service Unit (SASU) with the aim of improving road and yard safety. CAB is an example of a proactive safety risk-reduction method, called Clear Signal for Action (CSA), by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Human Factors Program within the Office of Research and Development. CSA combines behavior-based safety, continuous improvement, and safety leadership development. With sponsorship from FRA, Behavioral Science Technology, Inc., is instructing and advising on the implementation of CAB. Beginning in September 2005, CAB initially targeted improving practices associated with road-crew attention. Over two years since the start of this effort, SASU showed significant 72 percent drop in decertification rates, a proxy for collisions, that are likely to be related to crew attention, namely failure to stop for a red signal aspect, violation of main track authority, and speeding. The other service units in the same region showed no significant change in such decertifications. Beginning in October 2006, CAB expanded its focus to operations in the yard. At the time of this evaluation, there was a strong implementation at the Eagle Pass yard, a moderate implementation in the yards within the city of San Antonio, and no implementation at other yards in the service unit. Since CAB switching started, human-factors derailment rates decreased 69 percent (i.e., improved 319 percent) at the Eagle Pass yard. No significant changes occurred for the City of San Antonio or the non-CAB yards.
- Record URL:
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Authors:
- Coplen, Michael
- Publication Date: 2009-9
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Figures; Tables;
- Pagination: 4p
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Serial:
- FRA Research Results
- Publisher: Federal Railroad Administration
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Behavior; Countermeasures; Human factors; Railroad safety
- Uncontrolled Terms: Risk reduction
- Geographic Terms: San Antonio (Chile)
- Subject Areas: Railroads; Safety and Human Factors;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01147291
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: RR09-20
- Files: TRIS
- Created Date: Dec 28 2009 7:33AM