We're pleased to announce that our Award Winning Virtual Reality (VR) system made the headlines in Rail Staff Magazine on this month. The magazine focused on the safety of our VR system and mentioned that Signalling Engineers need to make sure that they don't become complacent in their role as complacency may lead to rail accidents.
Sometimes doing repetitive tasks day in & day out can lead to making small mistakes in any role , and this is true for signalling engineers who perhaps are carrying out repeated maintenance duties. A point worth mentioning is that all signalling engineers do go through rigorous testing and training and know how to do their jobs correctly. However, it only takes one simple mistake for an accident to happen. Which is why the team at PM Training & Assessing created a Virtual Reality (VR) system particularly designed for use by signalling maintenance engineers. The VR System provides a virtual safe world where engineers can carry out their tests and then see what happens if they don't get it right.
The VR system has an Aspect Test for an on-track signal and the engineer has a list of checks to complete. If the engineer does not perform the checks in the correct order, the trainer does not tick them off the system. At the end of the testing procedure the trainer can actually run a virtual train through the piece of track that the engineer has completed his list of checks on to see whether or not the train crashes. If the train does crash then the engineer is taken into another room where he will be shown headlines from previous rail crashes. These actions really bring home the reality of doing a job right first time whilst reinforcing the fact that their work may see them hit headlines news for all the wrong reasons.
A spoke person at PM Training & Assessing said "We’ve found that this is an effective way to tap into an engineers’ emotions, so that staying alert and on form is at the forefront of their mind each time they go out. We’ve already won an Enginuity Skills and Innovation Award for our VR system.
Engineering is seen as a very technical activity, but the challenge is to change how engineers think and feel and about their work. We can give engineers all the technical skills in the world but ensuring that they put them into practice every single day, is a much more difficult proposition."
You can find the full article here https://www.railstaff.co.uk/2023/08/22/award-winning-vr-reduces-complacency-among-signalling-engineers/