This autumn, two important events were organised by the UIC Middle East Railway Training Centre (MERTCe), which conducts its activities within the Turkish Railway Academy of TCDD. This was carried out by analysing the training needs of the countries in the region, with the first, “Risk Analysis and Management Training”, being held in Istanbul on 26-27 October 2023, and the “Human and Organisational Factors (HOF) in Railways” Seminar" taking place in Ankara on 21-22 November 2023 both online and in-person.
In the first session, on the topic of “Railway Safety from Design to Operation”, TCDD Deputy Director-General İsmail Hakkı Murtazaoğlu and UIC Regional Assembly for the Middle East (RAME) Coordinator Marc Guigon gave the opening speeches. During the training session, UIC Head of Operations and Safety Frédéric Henon touched upon the basic elements of functional safety, the 4th Railway Package, and EU regulations on safety, interoperability and risk management, while Uğur Özkan, Technical Manager at CERTIFER Turkey, gave a presentation on the European Norms 50126, 50128 and 50129.
In the seminar entitled “Human and Organisational Factors in Railways”, following opening speeches by Guigon and TCDD Training Department Head Cüneyt Türkkuşu, UIC Human and Organisational Factors expert Virginie Papillault introduced HOF in the railway system. In order to highlight their importance in railways, she discussed the new RailHOF digital platform, and the recent Safety Culture Peer Review developed by UIC and the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA).
Then HOF expert Eylem Thron gave a detailed explanation on the importance of human factors in safety and the HOF legal framework and legislation applied in the UK. Next, Başak Kubin, who works as a psychologist at TCDD Transport, gave a presentation on the human factor analysis classification system and accident analysis. Finally, Hüseyin Polat from the Transportation Safety Investigation Centre, affiliated with the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure of the Republic of Türkiye, gave information about the accident investigation process and practices.
