Most Wanted
Transportation Safety
Improvements
Federal Issues
Pipeline
Reduce Accidents and Incidents Caused by Human Fatigue
Objective
Importance
The Safety Board has long been concerned about the issue of operator fatigue in transportation and has stressed its concerns in investigation reports issued throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1989, the Board issued three recommendations to the Secretary of Transportation calling for research, education, and revisions to existing regulations. These recommendations were added to the Board’s Most Wanted List in 1990, and the issue of fatigue has remained on the Most Wanted List since then. The Safety Board’s 1999 safety study of DOT efforts to address operator fatigue continued to show that this problem was widespread. Operating a vehicle without the operator’s having adequate rest, in any mode of transportation, presents an unnecessary risk to the traveling public.
Safety Board recommendations on the issue of human fatigue and hours-of-work policies have had a substantial effect on encouraging the modal agencies to conduct research and take actions towards understanding the complex problem of operator fatigue in transportation and how it can affect performance.
Summary of Action
In 2002, the Research and Special Programs Administration, Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS), now the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), tasked the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center to develop information about work-rest cycles, fatigue measurement and fatigue management for pipeline controllers. In 2004, OPS reported that the Volpe Center project had “determined that there was very little information available to assess the extent of fatigue issues in pipeline transportation or to provide industry and labor with tools and techniques to manage any problems.” Consequently, PHMSA reported that it decided to “broaden [its] focus to include not just fatigue issues, but operator human factors in general” and it awarded approximately $1 million to the Battelle Memorial Institute for a project titled Human Factors Analysis of Pipeline Monitoring and Control Operations, to be completed in September 2008.
On August 11, 2005, PHMSA published an advisory bulletin (ADB-05-6), Pipeline Safety: Countermeasures to Prevent Human Fatigue in the Control Room (FR Doc. 05–15956) to address Safety Recommendation P-98-30. To develop this guidance, PHMSA worked with the pipeline community, Federal agencies with experience in human factors, and other human factors experts to evaluate how rotating controller schedules relate to human fatigue. The bulletin suggested that pipeline operators consider the following: (1) developing shift rotation practices that minimize fatigue, (2) limiting controllers to 12-hour shifts unless extraordinary or emergency situations are involved, (3) documenting cases where controllers have to work longer than 12 hours in a shift, (4) scheduling at least a 10-hour break between shifts, and (5) developing guidelines for scheduling controllers that consider the effects of fatigue. In addition, the bulletin included suggestions for training controllers and supervisors about fatigue and ensuring that the control room environment does not induce fatigue.
The Safety Board is optimistic that, with the enactment of the Pipeline Inspection, Protection, Enforcement, and Safety Act of 2006, specifically in Section 12 (Pipeline Control Room Management), operators will establish maximum limits on hours of service as part of a required human factors management plan.
‘‘§ 60137. Pipeline control room management
‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—Not later than June 1, 2008, the Secretary shall issue regulations requiring each operator of a gas or hazardous liquid pipeline to develop, implement, and submit to the Secretary or, in the case of an operator of an intrastate pipeline located within the boundaries of a State that has in effect an annual certification under section 60105, to the head of the appropriate State authority, a human factors management plan designed to reduce risks associated with human factors, including fatigue, in each control center for the pipeline. Each plan must include, among the measures to reduce such risks, a maximum limit on the hours of service established by the operator for individuals employed as controllers in a control center for the pipeline.
Action Remaining
Develop regulations to address fatigue in the pipeline industry.
Safety Recommendation
P-99-12 PHMSA
Issued June 1, 1999
Added to the Most Wanted List: 1999
Status: Open—Acceptable Response
Establish within 2 years scientifically based hours-of-service regulations that set limits on hours of service, provide predictable work and rest schedules, and consider circadian rhythms and human sleep and rest requirements. (Source:A 1999 intermodal safety study on fatigue in transportation [NTSB/RAR-91-03])
November 2007
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