Safety risk analysis on subway operation based on Socio-Technical Systems

The subway is a kind of transportation with complex technology and crowded passengers. Individual and society will be seriously affected by accidents of subway system. So the most important issue on subway operation is to develop safety risk analysis methods. This paper firstly introduces the concept of safety risk on subway operation. Then a category of safety risk events on subway operation is developed. Based on the Socio-Technical Systems theory, a safety risk framework, named Socio-Technical Risk Analysis (SoTeRiA) is analyzed. SoTeRiA formally integrates the technical system risk models with the social (safety culture and safety climate) and structural (safety practices) aspects of safety prediction models, and provides a theoretical basis for the integration. Finally, an example of applying the proposed generic framework to subway system is demonstrated.