Analysis and assessment of the human factor as a cause of occurrence of selected railway accidents and incidents

Abstract Ensuring safety is the key factor in the development of rail transport. For this reason, the railway market is heavily regulated, including recording and analysis of railway accidents and incidents. The article presents analysis of 148 final reports of accidents and incidents that occurred in the year 2020 in the Polish railway network and whose direct cause was human factor. The analysis looks at the age and experience of railway employees, as well as analyses human error using the Human factor analysis and classification system (HFACS) model and included train drivers and infrastructure-related stuff. It is pointed out that the available publications are generally focused on signal passed at danger accidents and incidents, which relate to passing through a stop signal, or another stop location, most often caused by an error of the train driver. Therefore, these analyses ignore accidents and incidents related to an improperly prepared and protected route, e.g. failure to close the level crossings boom barriers or incorrectly placed junction point, which under minimally different circumstances could have led to a tragedy. The causes of such accidents and incidents are also related to the human factor and therefore should have been identified and classified. The article identifies weaknesses in the investigations, including the quality of the documentation prepared. Such documentation most often focuses on the factors and causes directly related to the site of the accident or incident, while neglecting the factors at the organisational level.