The RailHOF digital platform was launched at IRSC 2022. This collaborative project has been created by the rail sector for the rail sector. Human and Organisational Factors (HOF) experts from railway companies, the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) and the International Union of Railways (UIC) worked together to coordinate the development of this platform.
RailHOF is now live and consulted with increasing frequency by visitors from across the world. This presentation will provide an update on the platform, sharing analytic data on the most popular subject areas, the countries who have consulted the platform the most and more. This is vital information about the HOF topics in which participants are interested or require assistance and provides input for future platform development.
The editorial team set up to develop content, structure the platform, moderate and ensure continued quality and impartiality of RailHOF meets regularly to improve the site. Much effort has been put into communicating and promoting RailHOF at conferences and expert meetings and through journal articles and interviews. This initiative has been successful as demonstrated by the increasing numbers of followers since the launch. These currently number 681 in the LinkedIn group and is further reflected in an increase in the number of connections and views on the site. Now that the platform has been launched and is in use, the challenge is to educate, guide use of and increase awareness about this platform in the railway sector, not only to draw inspiration from existing practices used by other railways, but to suggest new references and facilitating sharing problems, questions or successes related to the implementation of HOF. The presentation will include a live demonstration of RailHOF to illustrate these concepts.
Looking to the future, the editorial team is planning to create a forum and section dedicated to researchers in the field of railway HOF.
Although the digital platform is mainly directed to railway stakeholders, there are academics carrying out HOF railway research all over the world whose results could support evidence-based railway safety. We also plan to improve the section dedicated to people new to HOF by adding short videos of operational testimonies to illustrate HOF concepts in a more animated and accessible way. We expect the RailHOF platform to continue to develop to serve the needs of the rail community and this paper will present some of the planned evolution.