Harsco Rail
Minimise Human Error and Protect Workers with Protran Technology Railway Worker Protection Systems
- This article first appeared in the Railway-News magazine Issue 2 2022.
Railroad worker safety is a global concern. Railroad workers have an important role in keeping the railroads safe for passenger and freight trains through rail system inspections, maintenance and repairs on the trackway.
While performing these duties to help provide safe railroad tracks for the industry, the track workers themselves are faced with safety risks unique to their line of work. Traditional worker protections rely mainly on other workers providing a notification of an approaching train which leads to a wide array of potentially dangerous situations caused by human error.
Common safety risks with traditional railroad worker protection standard operating procedures include:
- Relying on a lookout or watchman provides a single point of failure
- Worker complacency, boredom, inattention and fatigue
- Workers being given more responsibilities with less time to complete tasks
- No advanced warning to train operators of workers ahead
- No advanced warning to track workers of an approaching train
- Increased equipment/convoy movements on tracks
Protran Technology offers several railway worker protection systems utilising innovative technology to protect both railway workers and railroad equipment, in an effort to mitigate various types of dangerous scenarios found on the railroad.
