Psychometric Testing for BR Trained Drivers

[SPADTrap]

While I agree, I also question:

Why?

A car has to have an MOT to ensure it is still safe to drive on the road. Why should older drivers, who may not meet today's standard, continue to work in a position they may not be qualified to do?

If the argument comes in that they have been doing the job for 20 years with no problem, then surely the standard that is set these days is wrong.

You can't have it both ways.

What you can't have is the way you described! :roll:

I'm not sure you've grasped the point.

 

[cossie4i]

Just another point I would like to make.

I have come across new drivers who have a massive knowledge of the rule book but can't DRIVE trains. I'm talking at least a year or 2 after they have passed so should of got the hang of it.
I had a trainee once who had a great understanding of rules and traction (put my knowledge to shame) but he had the concentration of a goldfish. Nice lad but I could never trust what he was going to do next. When he was on it he was a very good driver but he would just switch off.
So in my experience just because someone can pass rules and traction it does not make them a good driver.

 

[red2005]

Just another point I would like to make.

I have come across new drivers who have a massive knowledge of the rule book but can't DRIVE trains. I'm talking at least a year or 2 after they have passed so should of got the hang of it.
I had a trainee once who had a great understanding of rules and traction (put my knowledge to shame) but he had the concentration of a goldfish. Nice lad but I could never trust what he was going to do next. When he was on it he was a very good driver but he would just switch off.
So in my experience just because someone can pass rules and traction it does not make them a good driver.

yes but isn't that the same in any walk of life?....when you pass your driving test it doesn't make you a good driver does it?...that just means you have reached a standard that's acceptable to go out on your own!...experience is what makes you a good driver!

is 1-2 years long enough in train driving terms and the complexity that sometimes comes with it to make a sound judgement on that??...granted if you still don't know where your braking points are or blatantly violate rules etc fair enough....but i passed out last week and even though i share the same competence, if someone came up to me now and said are you as good a driver as that fella the other side of the mess room who's been driving trains since 1985 I'd have to simply laugh in their face!....of course i'm not and i can safely say i will still be learning new things off the old hands in 10 years time let alone 2 and will feel no shame in that!

i think even the most experienced drivers will probably admit they have switched off from time to time for whatever reason as no matter how well a person is trained they are only human..(and that is something that i was told in my interview by a driver manager)..but i personally will be coming up with my own ways to ensure i stay on the ball whether that be talking to myself or attempting the can can!!........but i won't realistically know until i have gained that experience through driving or learning off more experienced drivers!.......Rome wasn't built in a day!

 

[MisterT]

Interesting discussion. Do I understand correctly from the discussion above that once a driver is qualified in the UK, he doesn't have to take the tests again unless he switches to another TOC?
In the Netherlands, we have to take and pass these tests every 5 years to retain our train driving license and it has been that way for ages.

(Apologies for my bad English from a Dutch train driver )

 

[notadriver]

Interesting discussion. Do I understand correctly from the discussion above that once a driver is qualified in the UK, he doesn't have to take the tests again unless he switches to another TOC?

In the Netherlands, we have to take and pass these tests every 5 years to retain our train driving license and it has been that way for ages.



(Apologies for my bad English from a Dutch train driver )

British train drivers are subject to regular testing and monitoring to keep their licence anyway. A major examination takes place every 3 years.



These psychometric tests also known as ability tests are used to whittle down the thousands of train driver applicants and have little to do with real life train driving.

 

[MisterT]

Ah, thanks for the clarification. I've clearly misinterpreted this part:

The tests are nothing to do with driving trains, they are to test your concentration and ability to assimilate a lot of information quickly and accurately

The tests we have to take every 5 years in the Netherlands do contain the above mentioned tests, so I thought we were talking about the same kind of tests.

 

[notadriver]

Quite possibly I've misinterpreted so my apologies too.

 

[HLE]

yes but isn't that the same in any walk of life?....when you pass your driving test it doesn't make you a good driver does it?...that just means you have reached a standard that's acceptable to go out on your own!...experience is what makes you a good driver!

is 1-2 years long enough in train driving terms and the complexity that sometimes comes with it to make a sound judgement on that??...granted if you still don't know where your braking points are or blatantly violate rules etc fair enough....but i passed out last week and even though i share the same competence, if someone came up to me now and said are you as good a driver as that fella the other side of the mess room who's been driving trains since 1985 I'd have to simply laugh in their face!....of course i'm not and i can safely say i will still be learning new things off the old hands in 10 years time let alone 2 and will feel no shame in that!

i think even the most experienced drivers will probably admit they have switched off from time to time for whatever reason as no matter how well a person is trained they are only human..(and that is something that i was told in my interview by a driver manager)..but i personally will be coming up with my own ways to ensure i stay on the ball whether that be talking to myself or attempting the can can!!........but i won't realistically know until i have gained that experience through driving or learning off more experienced drivers!.......Rome wasn't built in a day!

First of all red, congratulations on passing out. Many months of hard work have paid off for you. Enjoy it!

I do understand the importance of the assessments and such, after all they haven't been part of the recruitment process for decades for the sake of it.

There are many drivers who have passed these who are good drivers. And a good deal of them had to sit them under BR and they have clean records, and are excellent drivers.

But it certainly isn't the only/best way to find out who is capable of driving trains. That is why I made the original comment about the secondman/drivers assistant way of getting promotion into the left hand seat. Yes the railways are a far more safety aware place than decades gone by, which certainly isn't a bad thing. Thankfully only on extremely rare occasions are trains driven by people who have had a jar beforehand, and they are usually dealt with which again isn't a bad thing. Some of the things one hears about how things were done decades ago does beggar belief whether some of the stories are true or utter rubbish.

But as others have said on this thread there have been a minority of drivers who have passed the tests and the application process with ease and have passed out, then had incidents within months, and generally haven't been any good at driving. I remember one driver in the last twelve months who was in the process of passing but seemingly had no clue how to drive a train. You know it's bad when the passengers notice and comment. Cue a stop short and a few other incidents, he's no longer driving trains, thankfully. I won't go into any more detail about it in this post, partly because its a public forum, and partly because I don't know about some of the other incidents well enough to comment, but i dare say there were better applicants who got rejected before him on the assessments alone.

However the railways are a much safer and harder place to get into/onto and rightly so, than they were even 10 years ago. Is this down to the aseesments alone?

And as for the disclaimer: The above opinion is mine alone and probably doesn't represent my employers'

 

[red2005]

First of all red, congratulations on passing out. Many months of hard work have paid off for you. Enjoy it!

I do understand the importance of the assessments and such, after all they haven't been part of the recruitment process for decades for the sake of it.

There are many drivers who have passed these who are good drivers. And a good deal of them had to sit them under BR and they have clean records, and are excellent drivers.

But it certainly isn't the only/best way to find out who is capable of driving trains. That is why I made the original comment about the secondman/drivers assistant way of getting promotion into the left hand seat. Yes the railways are a far more safety aware place than decades gone by, which certainly isn't a bad thing. Thankfully only on extremely rare occasions are trains driven by people who have had a jar beforehand, and they are usually dealt with which again isn't a bad thing. Some of the things one hears about how things were done decades ago does beggar belief whether some of the stories are true or utter rubbish.

But as others have said on this thread there have been a minority of drivers who have passed the tests and the application process with ease and have passed out, then had incidents within months, and generally haven't been any good at driving. I remember one driver in the last twelve months who was in the process of passing but seemingly had no clue how to drive a train. You know it's bad when the passengers notice and comment. Cue a stop short and a few other incidents, he's no longer driving trains, thankfully. I won't go into any more detail about it in this post, partly because its a public forum, and partly because I don't know about some of the other incidents well enough to comment, but i dare say there were better applicants who got rejected before him on the assessments alone.

However the railways are a much safer and harder place to get into/onto and rightly so, than they were even 10 years ago. Is this down to the aseesments alone?

And as for the disclaimer: The above opinion is mine alone and probably doesn't represent my employers'

Ah thank you very much mate! much appreciated!

oh that is where i agree totally! the assessments are far from 100 stonewall correct every time that is for certain! the odd candidate who isn't suited for the job and many a good candidate knocked back at the testing stage!

from my time on the railway i believe the main thing you must have is a good level of common sense! if you have that you can certainly forge yourself a decent career!.......

i agree that some form of second man experience is a good way to go but at the same time i do think there would still need to be some form of assessments in place to even get to that role!....it's just not the environment where we can have every tom dick and harry running around the place and i think from what i've seen these assessments don't just judge the level of education you have etc they can also be used to judge a persons character etc.

yeah by the sounds of it he was struggling a bit there! living proof that the assessments are 100 percent reliable! but on the other side i have seen them get rid of people who you wouldn't let near a wheelbarrow let alone hundreds of tonnes of train so they do a job also he he he

 

[redbutton]

I would disagree with the assertion that the psychometric tests are meant to determine a candidate's suitability for the training course rather than practical train driving.

The vigilance test weeds out candidates who have below-average attention spans, who may "drift off" or lose focus when faced with a monotonous task such as cruising on greens (must maintain focus), or suppose a signal goes back on you (need to react quickly).

The audio-visual multitasking tests such as the lift counting/phonebook would seem to apply to situations like where you're cruising at 85 then get a AWS for a 30 warning (TPWS protected) just before a whistle board and the DVD happens to activate at the same time. Throw in a pointless fault alarm like a toilet fault or something for extra stress.

The ATAVT memory test would seem to apply to various situations such as looking back when DOO or taking mental note of an incident for later report writing.

Of course, it's not to say that if you don't pass these tests you wouldn't be a good train driver, but the RSSB (who write the standards) have done research that shows these tests to be reasonably accurate predictors for people who would be. The TOCs and FOCs have thousands of applicants for dozens of places, so they can get away with being over-selective since all the places get filled.

The other thing to consider as it relates to the BR days is there wasn't the kind of safety culture that exists now. There was no OTMR or TPWS. Hell, many driving cabs didn't even have speedometers. Managers and signallers were your mates from down the pub. What today could be a career-ending operational incident wouldn't have even caught anyone's attention.

Ex-BR drivers have had 20+ years to build their skills up to modern standards, whereas TOCNE trainees get a few months to go from zero to fully-competent. So it's helpful to to start with a measure of natural compatibility, which is what the assessments select for.

Edit to add: It's also worth noting that driver training itself is now changing, with a certain TOC switching over to an e-Learning based course that virtually eliminates classroom teaching in favour of simulators and hands-on practical exercises and an emphasis on "non-technical skills" (situational awareness, etc).

 

[sunbeams7]

As some have already pointed out, these tests could/might have a place when it comes to narrowing the field of new applicants in any job position, but to use them as a deciding factor on the future of existing long serving employees seems a little at odds with itself.

I mean, does this imply "whoops we have been employing an inadequate person for the last however many years"?

It wouldn't be usual for some one to get less competent at a job the longer they do it, unless they have developed a true psychological disorder in time, or gotten bored with the job and so more apathetic, and so this type of testing (psychometric as it is) is surely not a safe or correct tool to use to establish a state of mind in those kind of circumstances (you might still pass despite the above scenarios).

I figured them to be a "second hurdle" (the first being your application/cv) in a selection process and nothing more.

 

[mtbox]

While I agree, I also question:

Why?

A car has to have an MOT to ensure it is still safe to drive on the road. Why should older drivers, who may not meet today's standard, continue to work in a position they may not be qualified to do?

If the argument comes in that they have been doing the job for 20 years with no problem, then surely the standard that is set these days is wrong.

You can't have it both ways.

I passed my car driving test 30 years ago. The test was a doddle compared to the test now.

should I have to pass my driving test again to the new standards to prove I can still drive a car competenty? Along with millions of other people? I don't think so.

 

[class 9]

The physcometric tests are for pre selecting Drivers.
Once qualified, you are retested every 2 years on rules and regulations and subject to remote down loads of the OTMR to ensure you are doing everything correctly. Also a medical every 5 years.
People are getting confused about the physcometric tests and rules exams once qualified.

 

[Llama]

It should perhaps be pointed out that in the period between BR and the mid-2000s, drivers did the same psychometric tests as they did up until the tests were recently slightly changed. However the internet was in its infancy and all the 'help me, what do I do' threads on internet forums simply didn't exist. People are nowadays going into the tests with some pre-emptive experience of what they will face which is a dangerous state of affairs and undermines the whole process. There is such desperation to get on a driver training course that people will obsess over the test requirements and practice materials that are available online, posting their own results and asking for advice. Plenty of individuals or companies are cashing in on the desperation too by selling materials to supposedly help people get on the courses.

Food for thought.