Posted By Stewart Fullarton Hi All, Don't know if any others out there are struggling with Fatigue and calculating it ??? I have put our rosters through the Fatigue and risk calculator from the HSE and it has thrown up various figures. The guidance gives a fatigue range of 0 - 100 with 20.7 being average fatigue, however there is no range for risk but average risk is 1. I would imagine the range is 1 - 5 ?? Right, still with me ?? If you are above average in both fatigue and risk, what actions should be taken ? I guess you have to reduce it to as low as possible by smart rostering ? With the new ROGS coming into play and having to ensure safety critical workers are not fatigued, where do i go from here. Anyone else out there either in the same boat or has their finger on the pulse in relation to this please drop me a line as my head is starting to hurt. Anyone in the rail industry got any figures i can benchmark against ? Thanks Stew

Posted By nspencer From a medical prospectitive you may wish to look at this http://oem.bmjjournals.c...cgi/content/full/58/1/68

Posted By Ben Keen Hi Stewart, If you can be more be more explicit about the type of work you are involved in, I can put you in touch with a member of the Railway Specialist Group committee with the right contacts. Regards Ben Keen Chairman RSG

Posted By Jeffrey Watt Stewart Slightly off topic as my work was factory based but I took 2 years worth of incident stats (minor and lost time) and plotted them on two radial bar graphs representing the an AM and PM clock, so it was round like a pie chart but data was represented as a histogram. This highlighted a real dip in alertness between 12 and 4 am in the morning represented by a raised plateau of incidents. Surprisingly massive spikes at break times occurred. Which after some reflection was really quite obvious. Staff left workstations on their break leaving the remaining staff to cope, more pressure , more cut corners etc. Just a point of interest. Kind regards Jeff

Posted By Andy Brazier I've examined shift patterns for a number of companies in the chemical/oil industry using version 1 of HSE tool (I believe a new version came out in the last 6 months). From this work the main message seemed to be that fatigue is most affected by the length of break people had between shifts. Quick turnarounds (8 hours or less) are particularly bad as they do not give enough time for people to recover and tend to disrupt sleep patterns. It is important shift rotate forwards (i.e. do morning, then afternoon and then night shift before longer break) and ideally do two of each (and less than four) within the rotation. Also, starting before 7am can be a problem. But there is more to a shift pattern than the basic rota. In the chemical industry we have found that issues include communication (12 hour shift require less handovers than 8 hours) and covering absence (i.e. who is available to cover sickness). Also, you need to manage shift swaps and overtime. Finally, don't forget the working time regulations. I think they apply to most jobs now, with the only opt out available being the 48 hours maximum. Also, even if you can claim an exemption, I would hold them up as a good practice benchmark. I have blogged a number of articles over recent months that apply to shift work and fatigue. Links below a href=http://andybrazier.blogspot.com/2006/10/shift-work.html>Recent research /a> a href=http://andybrazier.blogspot.com/2006/09/working-time-directive-rest-breaks.html>Working time directive/a> a href=http://andybrazier.blogspot.com/2006/08/drowsy-driving.html>Wakeup drinks/a>