This paper presents an overview of the field of error analysis. Section 1 shows why discussions about human error are relevant to safety. With regard to safety research, it is important to predict abnormal events. In machine rooms, reliability studies proved their value, but to predict failures in the human factor has been shown to bevery difficult. therefore, problems in defining the notion of humanerror (section 2) and methods of analysing and classifying different types of error (section 3) are discussed. Some researchers startedto use systematical classifications of human error types based on arecent, hierarchical model of human task performance. The outline of the model is presented. Examples of error analysis studies from the field of transportation research (section 4) provide some basic suggestions on how to reduce error rates. Some conclusions on error control are given in section 5. The responsibility of managers and system designers in this respect is strongly emphasized.
Samenvatting