Test of Alerter/Emergency Braking System

摘要

The purpose of the alerting device test program was to obtain a base of data thatcan subsequently be used to determine the effectiveness of the tested equipment. The approach for accomplishing this was to use the Research and Locomotive Evaluator/Simulator (RALES) full-scale locomotive simulator at IIT Research Institute (IITRI) to create realistically simulated but controlled conditions. The RALES simulator, built and operated by IITRI for the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), is recognized by experienced railroad personnel as offering the best available alternative to actual locomotive operation for training enginemen. This means that, under properly designed and controlled conditions, it offers an acceptable replica environment for testing the efficiency of new equipment. The basic experiment design strategy was to subject several experienced and active enginemen to simulator sessions that test the use of the alerting device. In order to develop a sufficient base of data, 16 test subjects were required.