Kathryn Woodcock

How can we improve amusement ride safety by supporting inspector performance and expertise acquisition?

While rider behaviour predominates among causes of rider injuries, ride failure is a possible mechanism for exposure of riders to harm. Ride inspection is also a complex task. This research examines safety inspection with specific reference to ride inspection.

• What is "expertise" in ride inspection? What do expert inspectors know that novice inspectors must learn? How can novices develop expertise with less delay and cost than just leaving them to work for as long as the experts did?
• How do the inspectors organize the inspection task in their minds, and then how do they carry out that plan and what do they need to see, feel, and hear to made the judgements that they need to make?
• How do expert inspectors made decisions that are not clear-cut? The particular interest is when the equipment is not in perfectly new condition and the inspector must determine whether deterioration is of an important nature and a threat to safety.
• How can ride inspection checklists be tailored to the needs of the specific inspector, yet made available on a wider basis to propagate knowledge more extensively?

Content analysis of 100 consecutive media reports of amusement ride accidents

Woodcock, K., 2008. Accident Analysis and Prevention 40, 89-96.

Accident investigations influence public perceptions and safety management strategies by determining the amount and type of information learned about the accident. To examine the factors considered in investigations, this study used a content analysis of 100 consecutive media reports of amusement ride accidents from an online media archive. Fatalities were overrepresented in the media dataset compared with U.S. national estimates. For analysis of reports, a modified "Haddon matrix" was developed using human-factors categories. This approach was useful to show differences between the proportions and types of factors considered in the different accident stages and between employee and rider accidents. Employee injury accounts primarily referred to the employee's task and to the employee. Rider injury reports were primarily related to the ride device itself and rarely referred to the rider's "task", social influences, or the rider's own actions, and only some reference to their characteristics. Qualitatively, it was evident that more human factors analysis is required to augment scant pre-failure information about the task, social environment, and the person, to make that information available for prevention of amusement ride accidents. By design, this study reflected information reported by the media. Future work will use the same techniques with official reports.

Modeling safety inspection: case of amusement ride inspection.

Woodcock. K., 2007. Proceedings of the Association of Canadian Ergonomists. [CD-ROM] 6 pgs.

Inspection is one of the principal strategies for prevention of injuries in many settings. This study used immersive grounded-theory methodology to observe and model amusement ride safety inspection. This paper sets out a model of inspection that reflects safety inspectors' creative uses of the work environment to support their own performance within the complexity and uncertainty of their task. Holistic multi-sensory assessment was the primary strategy, Checklists were rarely used concurrently. The inspectors used the ride structure to dictate inspection sequence. Distributed cognition was often used to resolve uncertainty and provided some of the feedback unavailable to the individual through experience. Suspected deficiencies prompted a search for permissive authorities rather than prohibitive regulations. Observations were evaluated not only in terms of whether they constituted a discrepancy, but how a discrepancy should be handled. Follow-up work will apply the model of safety inspection to develop and evaluate performance supports for inspectors.

Strategies in safety inspection: the case of amusement ride inspection.

Woodcock, K., 2008. Strategies in safety inspection: Case of amusement ride inspection. Proceedings of the XX Annual International Occupational Ergonomics and Safety Conference. Chicago IL USA. pp 216-222.

Inspection is one of the principal strategies for prevention of injuries in many settings. Using naturalistic participant-observation, this paper reports on common strategies observed in amusement ride safety inspection. Notable strategies were the use of device-driven search rather than checklist-driven search, use of user-adapted documentation, individualized use of non-visual perceptual modalities, use of distributed cognition to develop capacity, and use of discretion.