Automation Complacency: Negative Aufmerksamkeitseffekte von TriebfahrzeugführerInnen unter der Zugsicherung PZB

Kurzfassung

Signals Passed at Danger („SPADs“) are the most common incidents in the rail operation that impair the safety in the rail operation. The train crash of Hordorf on the 29th of January 2011 is one dramatic example of the consequences of a SPAD event. After unauthorized driving on track section operated by a passenger train, a freight train crashed into the passenger train. Ten people died in this tragic train crash. Train protection systems such as the “Punktförmige Zugbeeinflussung” (PZB) are supposed to enhance such accidents by forced braking in critical situations and by controlling the train driver’s attention. A focus group of six train drivers at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Braunschweig at 2nd and 3rd of july 2014 indicated that the PZB not only didn’t enhance the attention of the train drivers but impaired it. The System-Related Model of Negative Attention Effects (Systembezogenes Modell negative Aufmerksamkeitseffekte, Giesemann & Naumann, 2014) describes how SPAD events can result from inattentiveness of train drivers resulting from an overconfidence in the PZB as well as the personality traits expectation of self-efficacy and competence and locus of control. In a simulator study with N = 20 train drivers attention was measured via eye glance data as well as subjective questionnaires after two drives – one with using the PZB and the other without using any train protection system. Subjective data were collected with the Human Computer Trust Scale, the Skala zur Allgemeinen Selbstwirksamkeitserwartung and the Fragebogen zu Kompetenz- und Kontrollüberzeugungen. No differences were found concerning the attention of the train drivers between the drive with PZB and the drive without PZB. The System-related Model of Negative Attention Effects was not confirmed neither. No relation was found between attention and trust in the PZB and self-efficacy and competence and locus of control. Explanations for these findings are discussed in the final part of the paper.