The recent incident with the run-away maintenance train on London Underground underlines the importance of designing control rooms around the needs of the operators. The information that has surfaced (www.railnews.co.uk/news/metro/2010/08/19-leaked-video-shows-49-second.html) show how the operators were able to avoid the incident becoming a disaster by clearing the path ahead of the runaway.
This required them to exercise all of their skill and training.
But it also required a control room and control system that allowed them identify the incident, understand what was happening, and work together on deciding what action to take and implementing it.
We await the publication of the RAIB report to see more detail on this.
