Comparison of real-time relative workload measurements in rail signallers

摘要

This exploratory field study investigated the weak resilience signals of workload in a rail traffic control room. The goals of this research are to see whether real-time system information of a rail control post can be used to predict workload of a rail signaller in real-time (Siegel & Schraagen, 2014), and to further improve this method. In order to investigate this question, three workload measures were used. The first was the subjective Integrated Workload Scale, the second was a physiological measurement of electrodermal activity and the third was behavioural observation. For two cases the subjective workload was compared to the system information algorithm and the two other workload measures. The results show that the system information for communication, manual actions and switch cost are discriminating for workload.