@article{ref1,
title="An examination of the yardmaster's role in railroad yard safety",
journal="Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomic Society annual meeting",
year="2006",
author="Reinach, Stephen J. and Viale, Alex F.",
volume="50",
number="22",
pages="2429-2432",
abstract="The rate of U.S. railroad yard switching accidents is more than 10 times the rate of accidents on other-than-yard track. Railroad safety and accident prevention has traditionally focused on the crews that operate on-track equipment, yet accidents usually have multiple contributing factors, including supervisory and organizational factors. This paper describes the results of focus groups with 56 railroad yardmasters to identify yardmaster-related factors that have the potential to affect yard safety. Yardmasters are the frontline supervisors of railroad yards: they plan, control, and manage track use in switching yards and are responsible for the operating crews in the yard. Focus group questions fell into five major topic groupings: training and experience; communications and information flow; stressors, distractions, workload, and difficult aspects of the job; fatigue, staffing, and work schedules; and best practices and lessons learned. Results illuminate a number of areas that, if corrected, may result in improved yard safety and operations.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="2169-5067",
doi="10.1177/154193120605002217",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/154193120605002217"
}