Resilience in rail engineering work

This paper discusses an ongoing project that aims at improving the potential for resilience of a system responsible for the planning of rail engineering work delivery. This is being addressed by means of a methodology based on the observation and analysis of “real” planning activities, using resilience engineering concepts as a background. Interviews with planners have been carried out to provide an overview of the planning process and steer more in-depth investigation. Analysis of historic information and observation of planners’ main activities is underway. Given the nature of the process under study, information flows and communication issues have been given particular attention throughout the data collection and analysis stages. Initial data confirms that the planning process is greatly reliant on the capability of people using their knowledge and skills to communicate in a dynamic informational environment. Evidence was found of communication breakdowns at the boundaries of different planning levels and teams. The fact that the process is divided amongst several different areas of the organisation, often with different goals and needs, creates potential sources of conflict and tension.

Understanding safety and production risks in rail engineering planning and protection

Much of the published human factors work on risk is to do with safety and within this is concerned with prediction and analysis of human error and with human reliability assessment. Less has been published on human factors contributions to understanding and managing project, business, engineering and other forms of risk and still less jointly assessing risk to do with broad issues of ‘safety’ and broad issues of ‘production’ or ‘performance’. This paper contains a general commentary on human factors and assessment of risk of various kinds, in the context of the aims of ergonomics and concerns about being too risk averse. The paper then describes a specific project, in rail engineering, where the notion of a human factors case has been employed to analyse engineering functions and related human factors issues. A human factors issues register for potential system disturbances has been developed, prior to a human factors risk assessment, which jointly covers safety and production (engineering delivery) concerns. The paper concludes with a commentary on the potential relevance of a resilience engineering perspective to understanding rail engineering systems risk. Design, planning and management of complex systems will increasingly have to address the issue of making trade-offs between safety and production, and ergonomics should be central to this. The paper addresses the relevant issues and does so in an under-published domain – rail systems engineering work.

Head, tail, rail: imagens periféricas ou o obtuso das imagens fílmicas

Tendo como ponto de partida um conjunto de trailers cinematográficos, provenientes de salas de cinemas em declínio, este trabalho de investigação artística explora uma série de códigos, imagens gráficas e informações industriais, encontradas na periferia dessas bobinas fílmicas, que servem de orientação aos técnicos laboratoriais e aos projeccionistas. Sustentado nos conceitos de esconderijo (Bazin), intervalo (Vertov) e obtuso (Barthes), Head, Tail, Rail procura reflectir sobre o que está para além daquilo que os filmes, normalmente, mostram. Com recurso ao found footage e a várias técnicas de montagem, este trabalho pretende transformar as matérias fílmicas (película, imagem e som) em novas e regeneradas composições audiovisuais, sem qualquer referencial, extraindo daí o obtuso das imagens fílmicas.

On a control of a non-ideal mono-rail system with periodics coefficients

In this work, the problem in the loads transport (in platforms or suspended by cables) it is considered. The system in subject is composed for mono-rail system and was modeled through the system: inverted pendulum, car and motor and the movement equations were obtained through the Lagrange equations. In the model, was considered the interaction among of the motor and system dynamics for several potencies motor, that is, the case studied is denominated a non-ideal periodic problem. The non-ideal periodic problem dynamics was analyzed, qualitatively, through the comparison of the stability diagrams, numerically obtained, for several motor torque constants. Furthermore, one was made it analyzes quantitative of the problem through the analysis of the Floquet multipliers. Finally, the non-ideal problem was controlled. The method that was used for analysis and control of non-ideal periodic systems is based on the Chebyshev polynomial expansion, in the Picard iterative method and in the Lyapunov-Floquet transformation (L-F trans formation). This method was presented recently in [3-9].

Concessions and road and rail transport optimization

Includes bibliography

Port-rail integration: challenges and opportunities for Latin America

This issue of FAL Bulletin analyses the role of good modal integration between port facilities and the rail network to ensure port competitiveness.

Competition and complementarity between road and rail transport in the carriage of freight

A seminar on competition and complementarity between road and rail transport in the carriage of freight was conducted at ECLAC Headquarters on 6-7 November 2001. The seminar was attended by experts on transport matters from a range of countries, and their presentations covered the current state of integration of transport in countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. Also in attendance was an expert from Central America, who spoke about modal integration of freight transport in that region. Three round-table discussions were held with the participation of representatives of the trucking and rail sectors, drawn from both the private and public spheres.

Rail, urban transport and road maintenance: current trends and prospects

This edition of the FAL Bulletin provides an account of recent developments and trends in rail and urban transport and road maintenance in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Current issues and prospects in the transport sector: urban transport, rail transport and highway maintenance

This edition of the FAL Bulletin tells of recent events and trends in urban transport, railways and highway maintenance in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The potential for more trade by rail between Brazil and its neighbours in the Southern Cone

This edition of the FAL bulletin contains the summary of a review carried out by ECLAC concerning the potential for a higher level of trade via rail between Brazil and other countries of the expanded Mercosur, and through those countries with Asia.At present, such trade occurs at very low levels, except in the case of trade with Bolivia. Some projects are planned, however, that would improve integration of the railway network in the Southern Cone, without requiring very significant levels of investment. If those projects are executed, the prospects would be good in the medium and long term for substantially increasing trade by rail in the region.