The aim of this paper is to describe an ongoing project with the aim of improving safety in an organization working with maintenance and development of the railway infrastructure in Sweden. The first sub goal was to investigate the Genta method, with 62 employees resulted in a description of these latent errors in the organization.eral Failure Types in the organization. Seminars and interviews, based on the Tripod Del Recommendations for an improvement toward a safety culture was suggested, action plans were formulated and, in some cases, implemented. A follow up study is planned in a two year perspective.

The actors in charge of an emergency response are confronted with severe difficulties in coordination and decision making, especially in major accidents. To facilitate coordination, various decision support systems (DSS) integrated in communication systems have been developed. However, many DSS in the rescue service organizations are afflicted with under-use and other usability problems. Drawing on both a literature review and an analysis of recently obtained survey data from rescue personnel concerning usability of common communication system in Swedish emergency organizations, this paper addresses the issue of usability of DSS. It is concluded that the impetus for developing DSS in many cases has been the technological possibilities per se, not taking the decision makers task structure and contextual factors into account. It is argued that priority should be given to functions that provide a visual overview of the event and facilitate storing of the series of decisions made during the response

The purpose of this study was to investigate possible risk factors related to the quality of spoken communication between train drivers and train dispatchers at Banverket (Swedish Rail Administration). In a first stage 1422 recorded and transcribed dialogues were subject to an exploratory linguistic analysis. In a second stage 200 dialogues were sampled and made subject to a detailed analysis in terms of communication error types. Results showed an overall low frequency of communication errors. Errors actually observed were mainly related to deficiencies in identification and designation.

I syfte att undersöka eventuella samband mellan kvaliteten i samtalen hos Banverkets personal och risk för olyckor och incidenter genomfördes en lingvistisk analys. I ett första steg blev 1422 inspelade och transkriberade samtal mellan tågklarerare och tågförare föremål för en översiktlig lingvistisk analys. I ett andra steg drogs ett stickprov på 200 samtal som analyserades mer detaljerat med avseende på kommunikativa feltyper. Resultatet visade på en låg frekvens av kommunikativa fel. De fel som förekom rörde i huvudsak felaktig eller inkonsekvent identifiering och benämning.

The thesis is based on two studies conducted on behalf of the Swedish Emergency Services Agency. One study focused on the problems associated with selection and training of future emergency directors in Sweden. The other study surveyed the emergency directors’ needs for decision support systems in major accidents. It was found that the demands on the person acting as an emergency director are severe. The leadership behaviour required in emergency management is quite different from that of the official in ordinary work settings. An emergency director is exposed to many stressors, such as information overload, time stress and especially during the initial stage of a major operation, an accumulation of subtasks. Decision-making is at the centre of emergency directors´tasks and competence, but the nature of decisions differ between minor and major operations. Decision-making in major operations imply distributed decision-making, DDM, in that decisions are distributed among many actors of which no single individual has complete knowledge of the current situation. Interview data confirmed some findings of previous DDM laboratory research. Perceived stressors are mainly associated to the initial phase of an operation. Information needs differ according to the decision-maker’s position in the distributed system. The key problems identified in both studies concern differences in skills and decision style required in major operations as opposed to minor operations. Few people have substantial experiences of acting in major operations. By relating data obtained in the studies to contemporary theoretical frameworks in decision-making research this thesis aims to propose a viable approach for addressing these problems.It is argued that the psychological dimension of the emergency director has to be considered as well as the contextual demands. An ecological approach is discussed that takes both the psychological processes and the task characteristics into account.

Literature relative to safety management and safety climate is reviewed and discussed. Emphasis is on the role of managers in organisational safety. Recognised is that while there are managers who incorporate safety into their management and decision styles, many do not. Via consideration of factors such as management decision styles, reasons behind lack of management involvement in safety are explored. The authors describe a project that has developed a method to increase management awareness by involving them in a simple safety assessment process. Development of the process and strategies used are briefly outlined.

Literature on safety, organisational accidents and accident prevention was surveyed. It was found that a wide range of systems, methods and strategies are effective in the prevention of accidents and disasters. The variable that the majority of researchers identified as critical is day-to-day involvement of management in safety. It is argued that education of future managers is necessary for integrating human factors and safety concepts with mainstream business concepts

Prevention of large-scale accidents (often called organizational disasters) is growing in importance in today's industrial organizations. Organizational disasters where large numbers of people and wide geographic areas are affected can mean serious economic and operation disruption to an organization. The role of managers in the prevention of organizational disasters is described as critical. However, typical manager attitude towards organizational disasters is that occurrence is unlikely. This attitude causes them to neglect prevention strategies and activities. Shaping the attitudes of future managers during their university level training (e.g., in MBA programmes) through a class in ergonomics and safety is described as one means to shape manager attitudes. Psychological models of attitude formation and behaviour show that an attitude is stronger when there is learning about a topic. Greater knowledge and interest may later prevent organization disasters when students become managers. There would likely be an additional benefit of greater awareness of existing ergonomics and safety programmes that guard against small, single worker accidents.