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This is something I've thought about for a while, but in light of the recent RAIB report into the buffer stop collision at London Bridge it is a question that I think is worth asking. Could railway shift work, especially for safety critical roles, be improved and/or made more gradual in it's workings? For context, the collision at London Bridge was caused by the train driver not applying the brakes in time due to a microsleep believed to be caused by fatigue.
While nobody was seriously injured and damage was minor, it's not exactly an unknown phenomena for drivers to experience microsleeps, and the sleep-related issues outside of work related to shift work are widely known to people within the industry and even those outside of it.
We humans have quite simply evolved to sleep during the night, and our body clocks need time to adjust to new sleeping patterns so we can get sufficient sleep. Tiredness at work is certainly not something the safety conscious railway scoffs at. However, it's hard to not deal with sleep issues when, if what I've heard is true, you could be working one week extreme earlies and another finishing extreme lates.
But shift work has it's advantages, so in order to retain any benefits could the industry take a bit more of a gradual approach to changing shifts? For example, one week of earlies, then middays, then lates, then back to midday, then back to earlies, and so on? Could this also be done while accommodating potential swaps and permanent earlies/lates links?
I'd be quite interested in hearing people's thoughts on this, particularly from railway workers who have dealt with shift work.
Why couldn't the shifts be grouped into early/day/late/night and at start of employment someone is grouped into one of them and only as standard works shifts within their group (but they can be moved between with good notice and a rest period).
(This is from the perspective of someone who has only ever worked fixed hours, I've never had any involvement in shift work)
This is something I've thought about for a while, but in light of the recent RAIB report into the buffer stop collision at London Bridge it is a question that I think is worth asking. Could railway shift work, especially for safety critical roles, be improved and/or made more gradual in it's workings? For context, the collision at London Bridge was caused by the train driver not applying the brakes in time due to a microsleep believed to be caused by fatigue.
As per the report discussion, the driver had also done a substantial amount of RDW, which no doubt impacted his ability to recover from tiredness and fatigue.
We humans have quite simply evolved to sleep during the night, and our body clocks need time to adjust to new sleeping patterns so we can get sufficient sleep. Tiredness at work is certainly not something the safety conscious railway scoffs at. However, it's hard to not deal with sleep issues when, if what I've heard is true, you could be working one week extreme earlies and another finishing extreme lates.
The roster needs to rotate around - you can't* just keep doing extreme earlies as someone needs to do the late shifts, otherwise that person has to do 2 weeks of late shifts etc
It is also important to distinbuish between crew shifts (which may start at 0424 then 0511 then 0443 etc.) and signaller and control shifts which will be a fixed 8-12 hrs for example 0630-1430, 1430-2230, 2230-0630.
But shift work has it's advantages, so in order to retain any benefits could the industry take a bit more of a gradual approach to changing shifts? For example, one week of earlies, then middays, then lates, then back to midday, then back to earlies, and so on? Could this also be done while accommodating potential swaps and permanent earlies/lates links?
There's a few issues with your proposal that I can think of the top of my head, although they may seem reasonable.
Due to the nature of the industry, there are a lot more very early shifts and very late shifts as trains are brought from / to depots by train crew. There will be a lot fewer 'middle' shifts which simply aren't as necessary. Drivers work an average of a 9 hour week so let's say its a 0400 book on and finish at 1300. If you need a late shift then you're talking something like 1600 to 0100. So only a small part in the middle that needs covering. This is a very basic interpretation; roster introduction for say a 40 person depot with varying coverage is incredibly complex and also interlinks with other depots.
Early and late shifts can cover the AM/PM peak respectively where the majority of trains run and they can run trains into depot as the service ramps down.
You've still got some backwards rotation within the shift pattern, even if it is mild.
There are normally very few night shifts (I'd be amazed if it was more than 5% of links at any depot). You could have more to get rid of some of the extreme earlies and lates, but nights are unpopular and see point 7!
You need to consider weekends which are reduced (particularly on a Sunday, and whether the TOC has Sundays inside) and suitable number of RDs to transition between the shift groups. Particularly for nights.
Most rosters are built alongside union reps for a compromise arrangement and go through the "fatigue matrix" which essentially assess the quantity, length, consecutive number and type of shifts and will flag up issues. It's certainly not perfect.
A mismanaged roster can have a dramatic impact of staff morale and is one of the best ways to start pissing off shift workers!
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Why couldn't the shifts be grouped into early/day/late/night and at start of employment someone is grouped into one of them and only as standard works shifts within their group (but they can be moved between with good notice and a rest period).
(This is from the perspective of someone who has only ever worked fixed hours, I've never had any involvement in shift work)
Because many who work shifts appreciate the flexibility it gives them across all parts of the year. Some do like to fix and are able to accomodate permanent swaps but in some places you tend to find some shifts are "less desirable" (tends to be lates in my experience!) so it probably wouldn't be seen as fair.
Everyone has to do all the shifts, and mutual swaps are available - and often employed - where approriate.
Because many who work shifts appreciate the flexibility it gives them across all parts of the year. Some do like to fix and are able to accomodate permanent swaps but in some places you tend to find some shifts are "less desirable" (tends to be lates in my experience!) so it probably wouldn't be seen as fair.
Everyone has to do all the shifts, and mutual swaps are available - and often employed - where approriate.
Oh I wouldn't say its an easy answer and there's probably some errors in assumptions I've made! Railway (and to be honest anywhere that has shifts) rostering can be very difficult to explain and complex to understand.
A few rosters have been posted in the forums in some of the driver threads over the years.
At three companies I know of, the 6 week rotation (aka 3 week pattern) is in, and goes some way to address tiredness. It has a 5 day long weekend every three weeks, and the voluntary Sundays are usually after weeks 1 and 4 - usually no shortage of volunteers.
M T W T F S
X X L L L L
E E X X E E
L L L L X X
X X E E E E
L L X X L L
E E E E X X
X - Rest Day
L - Late
E - Early
This roster also allows staff to do a perpetual mutual swap... one wanting permanent lates, the other permanent earlies.. those who struggle with shifts can then permanently get their preferred shift, that is until their swap leaves.
As per the report discussion, the driver had also done a substantial amount of RDW, which no doubt impacted his ability to recover from tiredness and fatigue.
The roster needs to rotate around - you can't* just keep doing extreme earlies as someone needs to do the late shifts, otherwise that person has to do 2 weeks of late shifts etc
It is also important to distinbuish between crew shifts (which may start at 0424 then 0511 then 0443 etc.) and signaller and control shifts which will be a fixed 8-12 hrs for example 0630-1430, 1430-2230, 2230-0630.
*Unless you have agreed a permanent swap
There's a few issues with your proposal that I can think of the top of my head, although they may seem reasonable.
Due to the nature of the industry, there are a lot more very early shifts and very late shifts as trains are brought from / to depots by train crew. There will be a lot fewer 'middle' shifts which simply aren't as necessary. Drivers work an average of a 9 hour week so let's say its a 0400 book on and finish at 1300. If you need a late shift then you're talking something like 1600 to 0100. So only a small part in the middle that needs covering. This is a very basic interpretation; roster introduction for say a 40 person depot with varying coverage is incredibly complex and also interlinks with other depots.
Early and late shifts can cover the AM/PM peak respectively where the majority of trains run and they can run trains into depot as the service ramps down.
You've still got some backwards rotation within the shift pattern, even if it is mild.
There are normally very few night shifts (I'd be amazed if it was more than 5% of links at any depot). You could have more to get rid of some of the extreme earlies and lates, but nights are unpopular and see point 7!
You need to consider weekends which are reduced (particularly on a Sunday, and whether the TOC has Sundays inside) and suitable number of RDs to transition between the shift groups. Particularly for nights.
Most rosters are built alongside union reps for a compromise arrangement and go through the "fatigue matrix" which essentially assess the quantity, length, consecutive number and type of shifts and will flag up issues. It's certainly not perfect.
A mismanaged roster can have a dramatic impact of staff morale and is one of the best ways to start pissing off shift workers!
Thanks very much for this in-depth explanation. I suspected that there must've been good reason why shift work change hasn't been implemented or proposed within the industry, partly because of your point on union reps having their say in it as well, but now I can see a lot more of the method in the railway madness. For what it's worth as well, even the current shift work was never enough to put me off ever going for a railway job.
At three companies I know of, the 6 week rotation (aka 3 week pattern) is in, and goes some way to address tiredness. It has a 5 day long weekend every three weeks, and the voluntary Sundays are usually after weeks 1 and 4 - usually no shortage of volunteers.
M T W T F S
X X L L L L
E E X X E E
L L L L X X
X X E E E E
L L X X L L
E E E E X X
X - Rest Day
L - Late
E - Early
This roster also allows staff to do a perpetual mutual swap... one wanting permanent lates, the other permanent earlies.. those who struggle with shifts can then permanently get their preferred shift, that is until their swap leaves.
At three companies I know of, the 6 week rotation (aka 3 week pattern) is in, and goes some way to address tiredness. It has a 5 day long weekend every three weeks, and the voluntary Sundays are usually after weeks 1 and 4 - usually no shortage of volunteers.
M T W T F S
X X L L L L
E E X X E E
L L L L X X
X X E E E E
L L X X L L
E E E E X X
X - Rest Day
L - Late
E - Early
This roster also allows staff to do a perpetual mutual swap... one wanting permanent lates, the other permanent earlies.. those who struggle with shifts can then permanently get their preferred shift, that is until their swap leaves.
I've done this pattern for many years now and it's deeply flawed. A simple tweak makes it a lot better, all that needs done is the changes from early to late and vice versa be done where rest days intervene, like so;
M T W Th F Sa
1. X X L L L L
2. L L X X E E
3. E E E E X X
4. X X L L L L
5. L L X X E E
6. E E E E X X
Its far better, although a little more work involved for swaps. Double rest days should be essential for turning around from lates to earlies.
Different people want different things from their rosters. Some will value long runs of rest days, minimal weekend working, or easy ways of combining the smallest amount of ad hoc leave possible with blocks of rest days, above fatigue.
As a former signalman many years ago I worked the standard three week Nights-Lates-Earlys roster for many years. For a couple of years there were no Rest Days as staff were being reduced due to planned redundancy and two twelve-hour Sundays to give the man coming of Earlys a day off. There were two eight-hour turnrounds: Sunday 18.00-0600 Monday and then back 14.00-22.00, and Saturday 14.00-22.00 and back for 06.00-18.00 Sunday. Despite living on my own, I did find the first of those two a pain and normally stood up for an hour or so around 17.00 until the sudden weariness wore off. We did it because pay wasn’t that good and all the Rest Days, Sundays and overtime probably nearly doubled our takehome. The attitude was that if you didn’t like it, you shouldn’t have taken the job.
One of the problems with a Earlys-Lates-Nights roster is the changeover. You work a week of Earlys, ending with a Sunday, and then slip into a week of Lates, do a Sunday and then a week of Nights, ending with Sunday night into Monday. Who is going to do Monday Early turn? In some depots, depending on the workload, it can be worked, but in others it is going to be a problem. When I was later involved in Guards rostering, this was one of our biggest headaches, even with the time’s shorter minimum rests.
As per the report discussion, the driver had also done a substantial amount of RDW, which no doubt impacted his ability to recover from tiredness and fatigue.
Elephant in the room:
No pay rise for several years, inflation around 30% over those years, living in the south London area with high house prices/rent.
After the (significantly below inflation) payrise arrived as backpay, I expect there was still a need by some to work overtime to ease their financial pressures which had built up during that time.
The roster needs to rotate around - you can't* just keep doing extreme earlies as someone needs to do the late shifts, otherwise that person has to do 2 weeks of late shifts etc
It is also important to distinbuish between crew shifts (which may start at 0424 then 0511 then 0443 etc.) and signaller and control shifts which will be a fixed 8-12 hrs for example 0630-1430, 1430-2230, 2230-0630.
*Unless you have agreed a permanent swap
There's a few issues with your proposal that I can think of the top of my head, although they may seem reasonable.
Due to the nature of the industry, there are a lot more very early shifts and very late shifts as trains are brought from / to depots by train crew. There will be a lot fewer 'middle' shifts which simply aren't as necessary. Drivers work an average of a 9 hour week so let's say its a 0400 book on and finish at 1300. If you need a late shift then you're talking something like 1600 to 0100. So only a small part in the middle that needs covering. This is a very basic interpretation; roster introduction for say a 40 person depot with varying coverage is incredibly complex and also interlinks with other depots.
Early and late shifts can cover the AM/PM peak respectively where the majority of trains run and they can run trains into depot as the service ramps down.
You've still got some backwards rotation within the shift pattern, even if it is mild.
There are normally very few night shifts (I'd be amazed if it was more than 5% of links at any depot). You could have more to get rid of some of the extreme earlies and lates, but nights are unpopular and see point 7!
You need to consider weekends which are reduced (particularly on a Sunday, and whether the TOC has Sundays inside) and suitable number of RDs to transition between the shift groups. Particularly for nights.
Most rosters are built alongside union reps for a compromise arrangement and go through the "fatigue matrix" which essentially assess the quantity, length, consecutive number and type of shifts and will flag up issues. It's certainly not perfect.
A mismanaged roster can have a dramatic impact of staff morale and is one of the best ways to start pissing off shift workers!
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Because many who work shifts appreciate the flexibility it gives them across all parts of the year. Some do like to fix and are able to accomodate permanent swaps but in some places you tend to find some shifts are "less desirable" (tends to be lates in my experience!) so it probably wouldn't be seen as fair.
Everyone has to do all the shifts, and mutual swaps are available - and often employed - where approriate.
Where I work the earlies start times range from 03×× through to 07×× with most being 05×× to 06×× starts.
The lates start from 12×× through to 18×× and then there are nights as well. There aren't any mid to late mornings, although there were at my previous TOC.
Most depots on Great Northern are nights every 8 weeks (so 12.5% of the time), but Hornsey (all three rotas/links) are nights every 5 weeks (20% of the time). Kings Lynn dont have many, and there have been some timetables when they didn't have any.
LNER have a large number of nights at Kings Cross - I'd say they came around about roughly every six weeks, although I think they have a night rota now which has taken a fair few out of the other rotas (links). Eurostar at St Pancras also do as well - you'd be surprised.
5% nights is a massive underestimation I would say.
Saying that, Southern don't have many nights, but seem to prefer to have ridiculously early starts at three in the morning, and late finishes at two or three in the morning. Presumably, this lessens the chances of finishing a Saturday night shift on the Sunday morning and having to be back at work early on the Monday.
In their rosters, nights are a 'PM' week. At Great Northern, nights are a 'night' week, and are always followed by a 'PM' week. They do not have the six week rotation below though.
At three companies I know of, the 6 week rotation (aka 3 week pattern) is in, and goes some way to address tiredness. It has a 5 day long weekend every three weeks, and the voluntary Sundays are usually after weeks 1 and 4 - usually no shortage of volunteers.
M T W T F S
X X L L L L
E E X X E E
L L L L X X
X X E E E E
L L X X L L
E E E E X X
X - Rest Day
L - Late
E - Early
This roster also allows staff to do a perpetual mutual swap... one wanting permanent lates, the other permanent earlies.. those who struggle with shifts can then permanently get their preferred shift, that is until their swap leaves.
This is a common roster on the railway. It's easy to swap weeks with other drivers; Sundays are outside the working week, so it doesn't have that as an extra complication. The lates (or sometimes nights) Saturday into earlies Monday, is a fatigue issue though.
I've done this pattern for many years now and it's deeply flawed. A simple tweak makes it a lot better, all that needs done is the changes from early to late and vice versa be done where rest days intervene, like so;
M T W Th F Sa
1. X X L L L L
2. L L X X E E
3. E E E E X X
4. X X L L L L
5. L L X X E E
6. E E E E X X
Its far better, although a little more work involved for swaps. Double rest days should be essential for turning around from lates to earlies.
If you want earlies all the time, other drivers are going to have to give you either week 3 or week 6 etc. Or in other words give you their 1 in 3 Saturdays off, which would be unlikely. This roster is pretty unworkable to swap on. On Great Northern around half the drivers permanently swap. At Thameslink, which has the rota above with midweek shift change, making it very hard to swap, about half the drivers seem permanently grumpy. I wonder if there's a correlation?!
My personal thoughts on this are unless you work day shifts then circadian rhythm will always be interrupted no matter the shift pattern because of how we are likely to use our days off.
On our days off I think most of us want to be on a normal schedule, up at 8/9 ish, bed at 10/11 ish so going from or to later/earlies is always going to have an impact.
(RAIB Report, Collision at London Bridge) Paragraph 71 is particularly damning, in my view: Getting 3 days off a month is nowhere near enough, particularly when doing shift work. The desire to earn more through RDW is understandable - but clearly, limits should be imposed to require a minimum level of rest.
As per the report discussion, the driver had also done a substantial amount of RDW, which no doubt impacted his ability to recover from tiredness and fatigue.
I can only agree with these sentiments... our railway relies on rest day work - this suits the management, as hiring extra staff exponentially costs more, however suitable limits need placing to ensure serious incidents don't occur, and I wonder if (Sir Anthony) Hidden's rules go far enough.
Maybe things like weekly hours limits, and seemingly leaving that up to the operators to decide what's excessive needs changing. An hours limit within any 28 day period... perhaps, a limit to 200hrs - minimum 8 days off in every 28 days. Also, maybe an absolute rule of shifts over eight hours should be a minimum of one hour break plus walking time. 30 minute PNBs aren't enough for any safety critical staff.
I was amazed when I joined the rail to find out that train drivers don't have legal limits set out to govern working hours and tachographs to enforce them like bus and truck drivers. It's all just done on gentlemens agreements and recommendations.
I was amazed when I joined the rail to find out that train drivers don't have legal limits set out to govern working hours and tachographs to enforce them like bus and truck drivers. It's all just done on gentlemens agreements and recommendations.
There are regulations, the main set (the "hidden rules") were set in place after the Clapham Junction rail crash in 1988.
They aapply to all saftey critical staff (including drivers).
There's no need for tachographs, trains can't be driven sneakily.
Hello all, I was wondering if someone may be able to explain how drivers hours laws work for a train driver in the UK. I currently work in the road freight industry and we must ensure drivers do not exceed an average of 48 hours per week over a 26 week reference period. Does it work in a...
www.railforums.co.uk
The basics of Hidden are that safety critical staff cannot work more than 12hours in a single shift, must have a minimum of 12hours rest between shifts and cannot work more than 14 consecutive days without a rest day.
in the early 80's as a 'Secondman' I found it easy enough to swap with colleagues so that I would normally book on after 20:00 on lates and before 5am on earlies, suited me suited them.
I can only remember one time that didn't work and that was a Saturday when Brighton played at Highbury in a F.A.Cup Semi/Final and I couldn't get rid of a 11am 'spare' turn. Remember watching the 3 Crompton hauled leaving.
There are regulations, the main set (the "hidden rules") were set in place after the Clapham Junction rail crash in 1988.
They aapply to all saftey critical staff (including drivers).
The Hidden rules aren't specifically set out in legislation though. You can't be prosecuted for not following them except through general Health & Safety law.
My personal thoughts on this are unless you work day shifts then circadian rhythm will always be interrupted no matter the shift pattern because of how we are likely to use our days off.
Thankfully I never had the early hours book-ons that some such as Drivers have, but just doing early, late and night shifts E, L and N) takes it out of you, much more the last of course.
When I first got an operational role, in Control way back in 1984, there were three groups of staff: The shift Controllers, who worked E, L and N in rotation, the Rest Day Relief (RDR) who covered the shift staff's Rest Days, which were only on the E and L weeks, and the General Purpose Relief (GPR) who covered anything needing covering. At that time the GPR staff did not even have set Rest Days, and there were no rostered Sundays. We only knew who was booked out on Sunday when the roster was posted, IIRC by 1200 on Thursday, in a location known for good reason as the Wailing Wall. It was up to the Roster Clerk to equalise, ie share fairly, the Sunday shifts, despite their best efforts this was a never-ending source of discontent.
As the years passed things did improve, all staff were grouped as one with rostered Rest Days and Sundays. The night shifts, having been a full week, were split over two separate weeks, with Sun-Wed nights one week and Thu-Sat another. Which I preferred, 6 or 7 turn nights were hard, but of course splitting the nights meant having to adjust onto and off them twice as often.
No matter how shifts are arranged humans are not naturally suited to them, and I found them harder as I got older. I do not miss the night shifts, or getting up at 0500 in the depths of winter, at all!
Elephant in the room:
No pay rise for several years, inflation around 30% over those years, living in the south London area with high house prices/rent.
After the (significantly below inflation) payrise arrived as backpay, I expect there was still a need by some to work overtime to ease their financial pressures which had built up during that time.
Nobody is saying that the odd RDW or overtime is unacceptable, but referring the the original London Bridge driver, they took it to extremes. But there are some people who frankly live beyond their means and rely on overtime for their day-to-day spending which isn’t reasonable. Of course the pay freeze can’t have helped.
Most depots on Great Northern are nights every 8 weeks (so 12.5% of the time), but Hornsey (all three rotas/links) are nights every 5 weeks (20% of the time). Kings Lynn dont have many, and there have been some timetables when they didn't have any.
LNER have a large number of nights at Kings Cross - I'd say they came around about roughly every six weeks, although I think they have a night rota now which has taken a fair few out of the other rotas (links). Eurostar at St Pancras also do as well - you'd be surprised.
5% nights is a massive underestimation I would say.
Fair enough. But I know lots of depots with 0% nights and a service that starts very early and ends very late. There again there’s a few depots that do nights but establishment is so high that it’s a low % and instead extreme earlies and lates are preferred.
I don’t know if you polled drivers whether they’d want to do extra nights in order to get rid of some of the worst early shifts but some like being finished before midday and take the rough with the smooth. Also shifts tend to be shorter if you’re booking on before 0430.
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No matter how shifts are arranged humans are not naturally suited to them, and I found them harder as I got older. I do not miss the night shifts, or getting up at 0500 in the depths of winter, at all!
Ultimately true. Of course lots of parts of society we take for granted wouldn’t function without staff being ‘willing’ (and paid accordingly) to work them.
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The night shifts, having been a full week, were split over two separate weeks, with Sun-Wed nights one week and Thu-Sat another. Which I preferred, 6 or 7 turn nights were hard, but of course splitting the nights meant having to adjust onto and off them twice as often.
I actually disagree here - better to get the nights done all in one go! Rosters I have worked have a significant number of RDs following them though to compensate and people may often swap or take A/L for parts.
This is a significant issue, especially in a highly unionised industry where it’s surprising it’s not more widely discussed. Fatigue is a constant problem, even with the best intentions, sometimes your body simply won’t allow sleep and you have to cope as best you can. Multiple incidents stemming from fatigue have occurred but the cause seems to be glossed over. Added to that, the many health issues which can arise from extreme shift work. Many people who see the rosters can’t believe how all over the place they are.
The question is, what can be done, if anything. Some links seem more considerate than others. However, even within the same company, demands can vary significantly between depots. Some require nights, later starts and finishes while others don’t. Some companies have dedicated permanent AM or PM links, which can help to alleviate fatigue. Others seem indifferent.
I may be mistaken, but during the recent ASLEF GS leadership campaign, I don’t recall either candidate really mentioning fatigue issues. It seems to be viewed as an unavoidable reality of the job, which is exactly what it might be.
This is a significant issue, especially in a highly unionised industry where it’s surprising it’s not more widely discussed. Fatigue is a constant problem, even with the best intentions, sometimes your body simply won’t allow sleep and you have to cope as best you can. Multiple incidents stemming from fatigue have occurred but the cause seems to be glossed over. Added to that, the many health issues which can arise from extreme shift work. Many people who see the rosters can’t believe how all over the place they are.
The question is, what can be done, if anything. Some links seem more considerate than others. However, even within the same company, demands can vary significantly between depots. Some require nights, later starts and finishes while others don’t. Some companies have dedicated permanent AM or PM links, which can help to alleviate fatigue. Others seem indifferent.
I may be mistaken, but during the recent ASLEF GS leadership campaign, I don’t recall either candidate really mentioning fatigue issues. It seems to be viewed as an unavoidable reality of the job, which is exactly what it might be.
Often the term “that’s why you are paid so much so get on with it” comes up.
Which to a certain extent I agree with as that is exactly why I do it, if it wasn’t paid so high I’d walk.
Those not in the job often find that hard to believe because we on press buttons and pull handles but I certainly wouldn’t do these shifts with this level of responsibility for any less.
My company is one of those where the bigger depots get the worst start and finish times and have night shifts whereas the smaller depots get it much easier. Still all paid the same and have the same perks though so there is some grumbling at the bigger depots.
I’m in my 40’s and always consider myself an avid gym goer and fitness enthusiast, I’ve been in the driver grade for 4 years now if you include training and even with my best intentions my physique isn’t as good as it was, I’d say this is mainly down to feeling tired outside of work whether it be less intense gym sessions or just completely skipping it.
From conversations I’ve had with people I do feel there is a fear to refuse to work a train due to fatigue. I’m not sure how true it is but people seem to think that rather than receiving support drivers would feel they are being accused of not managing life correctly in order to be fit for work.
When I was airline crew your day 1 started at 6AM then could (depending on the time of year) get as early as 0430 report, you could could only do so many 'disruptive duties' which was a pre 6AM report, it also was not common to do a late, 1 day off then into an early which is rubbish for your body clock.
This was my experience in shift work and I have been in the railway 3 months so I doubt much has changed.
An A.I. powered bidding/swapping system might work well. Everyone logs in and prioritises their preferred range of start times for each week.
The system then checks against hidden rules, clashes with prior/future workings and automatically puts the swaps through where possible.
An A.I. powered bidding/swapping system might work well. Everyone logs in and prioritises their preferred range of start times for each week.
The system then checks against hidden rules, clashes with prior/future workings and automatically puts the swaps through where possible.
At three companies I know of, the 6 week rotation (aka 3 week pattern) is in, and goes some way to address tiredness. It has a 5 day long weekend every three weeks, and the voluntary Sundays are usually after weeks 1 and 4 - usually no shortage of volunteers.
M T W T F S
X X L L L L
E E X X E E
L L L L X X
X X E E E E
L L X X L L
E E E E X X
X - Rest Day
L - Late
E - Early
This roster also allows staff to do a perpetual mutual swap... one wanting permanent lates, the other permanent earlies.. those who struggle with shifts can then permanently get their preferred shift, that is until their swap leaves.
A year ago my depot for guards swapped from this pattern to instead the below. Personally I much prefer it, allows for whole 3 week block swaps if you prefer earlies/lates and means you swap over on a long weekend of 5 rest days each time. Also means it's harder for any RDW to mess up your pattern as it generally has to stick with whichever of E/L you're on due to Hidden...
X X L L L L
L L X X L L
L L L L X X
X X E E E E
E E X X E E
E E E E X X
We have had a number of issues with members trying to set up duplicate accounts in this forum.
Please note that we only allow one account per person, but if you find yourself in a situation in which you'd like a separate identity for this section then please contact us directly and explain your reasoning or concerns rather than setting up a separate new account.
We are aware of an issue with emails from the Forum to Microsoft-based email accounts (hotmail/outlook/live.com email addresses). This is being looked into currently, thanks for your patience meanwhile.
