EU Railway Agency — 2025-04-11
Land transportation
AUTOMATION MYTH BUSTING SERIES - Automation and intelligent systems have the potential to make freight work safer, easier, and improve the efficiency of operations. At the same time, it may put new challenges on to the staff who work in the rail freight yard environment.
Freight yard automation is often viewed as a simple process that does not need to consider the user. This myth-busting paper looks at importance of considering the ergonomics of the freight yard – the physical, cognitive and organisational nature of the work – to ensure the optimum combination of human skills, knowledge and performance with automation. We look at these ergonomic factors through three relevant automation use cases – planning tools, e-maintenance applications and robotics.