Title: Human factor analysis for railway coach and bogie maintenance using principal component analysis and factor analysis

Authors: Sanghamitra Poddar; Subhash Chandra Panja; Sankar Narayan Patra; Malay Gangopadhyaya

Addresses: Institute of Engineering and Management, Y-12, Block-EP, Sector-V, Salt lake Electronics Complex, Kolkata, 700091, India ' Mechanical Engineering Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, 700032, India ' Instrumentation Science Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, 700032, India ' Institute of Engineering and Management, Y-12, Block-EP, Sector-V, Salt lake Electronics Complex, Kolkata, 700091, India

Abstract: One of the major challenges of railway transportation is to maintain the coach and bogie system for ensuring safety of passengers and goods, and maintain punctuality. In this context, there is a need to study the maintenance activities as well as humans involved in it. The present work aims to identify and analyse human factors responsible for coach and bogie maintenance of railway system. Thirty six human factors were identified. Principal component analysis (PCA) and factor analysis (FA) are used here. Three principal components were identified which represents 99% of the variance in the whole dataset. Factor analysis is performed on these three principal components to find most important factors based on individual factor loadings. Human machine interface, working environment, shift patterns, safety cultures, leadership, time pressure, situational awareness, perception, interpretation and training procedure were found to be few very important human factors.

Keywords: coach and bogie system; human factors; maintenance; principal component analysis; PCA; factor analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHFE.2019.099582

International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics, 2019 Vol.6 No.1, pp.35 - 56

Received: 17 Apr 2018
Accepted: 16 Oct 2018
Published online: 13 May 2019 *

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