It is important that dispatchers and employees responsible for railway traffic safety at PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe S.A. can continually improve their skills using the most modern equipment. That is why PLK has launched the first railway traffic control equipment simulator.
Four workstations, seven computers and more than a dozen monitors illuminating the dim room. This is a railway traffic control and communications equipment simulator—the first of its kind in Poland. And although we are at 5 Białostocka Street in Warsaw, it allows us to move to Mińsk Mazowiecki. The simulator faithfully reproduces the local railway traffic control centre there and the conditions prevailing inside it.
Human lives are at stake
Three people can train simultaneously in front of screens showing railway routes, with green, red and yellow LEDs flashing in turn. An instructor supervises them. During four hours of intensive training, PLK employees respond on an ongoing basis to more than 40 situations they may encounter in their daily work, such as a temporary section occupancy, a train consist coming apart, a train failure, loss of control over points operation, and so on.
“Although I know I am in training, I am constantly aware that my work concerns safety, human life and health. So I am fully focused, just as I am during a shift, and I want to learn as much as possible,” says Marek Tchórzewski, a dispatcher from the Siedlce Railway Lines Division and a participant in the first training sessions on the modern railway traffic control equipment simulator launched by PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe S.A. in October this year.
Ready for every scenario
The simulator makes it possible to generate various situations. For example, in a multi-station simulation, each trainee operates a different station, but the same trains travel through their areas. Dispatchers must cooperate with one another, as they do in reality. It is also possible to create scenarios that are more difficult than those that would normally occur.
“There are situations we can anticipate and situations we do not expect. The latter arrive like a tsunami. But thanks to modern equipment, we can devise even the most extreme disaster, simulate it and present it during training. This is particularly important because even a dispatcher with 15 years of experience may never have encountered some situations,” says traffic instructors’ work coordinator Elżbieta Stojek.
For example: for an unknown reason, a driver ignored the “stop” signal on a semaphore, exceeded the speed limit, and a points failure additionally occurred along the route. The train is travelling faster and faster. The situation is becoming genuinely dangerous.
Renata Obara, a traffic instructor at the Skarżysko-Kamienna Railway Lines Division, pressed the “alarm” button, which stopped the traffic. It was the correct response. “It might seem that such a combination of events could never occur, and yet… When I saw the video recording of my reactions during that extreme situation, my facial expressions showed how the situation ultimately turned from truly very bad into a positive outcome. I could see the tension gradually leaving me,” she recounts.
Training for 8,600 employees
The simulator exercises are not only about training in operating the equipment, but mainly about developing the right habits and appropriate, responsible and safe conduct in emergency situations. “Simulator training will allow dispatchers and employees responsible for railway traffic safety to improve their qualifications. It will make it possible to act out scenarios involving many crisis situations connected both with equipment operation and train movements—situations that are more or less expected. Practising difficult situations without consequences also means better preparation and less stress when working in a responsible position,” says Tomasz Drobysz, director for simulator implementation at PLK.
The investment is worth more than PLN 4.5 million. More than 8,600 PLK employees responsible for the safe operation of rail traffic will benefit from the training. “This is another measure undertaken by the manager of the national railway network that will improve safety on the railways,” stresses Andrzej Pawłowski, vice-president of PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe S.A. “The simulator and training programme are part of the safety improvement programme consistently implemented by PLK since 2012. It covers more than 200 measures in four areas: investment, organisational, technical and employee-related. These include infrastructure modernisation and new control equipment, audits and improvement of procedures related to train traffic management, as well as critically important professional training for employees,” he concludes.
PLK prioritises safety
It is also worth noting that since 2005 PLK has consistently conducted the “Bezpieczny Przejazd” (“Safe Crossing”) social campaign. This year’s slogan is “Szlaban na ryzyko” (“Stop Risk”). According to statistics, drivers cause 98% of accidents at level crossings. That is why warning against risky behaviour and strengthening safety are priorities in the infrastructure manager’s activities.
Over the past four years (since 2011), the number of railway accidents has fallen by one quarter, while the number of people injured has fallen by 44%. 2014 was the safest year in history. From the beginning of the year (January–September), 147 accidents and collisions occurred at railway crossings and pedestrian crossings (categories A–E), five fewer than in the corresponding period of the previous year. Over the past four years, the PKP Group has allocated PLN 25 billion to improving railway safety.
PKP PLK S.A./ii