Operational Factors Affecting Undesirable Event Occurrence in the Railway System

The article discusses the specifics of rail transport. It is indicated what are the consequences of adverse events on the railway, including delays, incidents and accidents. The influence of traffic disturbances on the work of railway employees, first of all, the traffic managers, is discussed. There were two approaches used. The first one bases on an experiment within employees with traffic management, where failure influencing factors have been analysed within a questionnaire survey. Secondly, a general look was taken using experts knowledge. It was combined with the Fault Tree Analysis and the Event Tree Analysis, to show the influence of changes in the system, including wrong decisions, on further undesirable events.