ERGODESK

From EuroVR Knowledge Base

Full name
Innovative design of ergonomic train driver desk
Acronym
ERGODESK
Website
Keywords
Budget
Start date
2005/09/01
End date
2008/11/30



Contents

Partners

  • UNIVERSITÉ RENÉ DESCARTES - PARIS 5
  • UNIVERSITY OF LINKÖPING
  • UNIVERSIDAD POLITÉCNICA DE MADRID

Funding Bodies

  • EU FP6
  • MOBILITY-2.1 Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowships (EIF)
  • Marie Curie

Contact

  • ALSTOM TRANSPORT SA, FRANCE


Objectives

The design of a next generation of cabin desk of fully interoperable rolling stocks must take into account the safety issues (decisions taken by the drivers must never jeopardize the passenger safety) as well as the comfort of the drivers. To achieve tho se goals, a hand-made design process is presently used. Based on operators requirements and on designer's skills, a first mock-up desk is drafted. In a second step, the mock-up is presented to skilful drivers who can deliver their feelings to ergonomics specialists. For the time being, their opinions are compiled using 'verbalization' techniques (exchange of opinions between drivers and ergonoms). Finally, opinion of drivers are summarized and presented to the industry designer who proposes a new design based on these recommendations. Then an updated mock-up is made and a validation process is performed by going through the previously described loop. The present process present several important limitations. There is no drivers inputs from real equipments (s witch, button, '), or a mock-up of them. The use of mechanical equipments require a physical mock-up which takes time to manufacture; It is a time consuming process : 4 months for a desk mock-up manufacturing, 6 months for drivers validation and ergonoms analysis. No automatic tools are used for translating all or some parts of drivers opinions or actions and there is no capitalization of evaluation. Exchange of experienced researchers in complementary disciplines (ergonomics, virtual reality, risk assessment and visualization) in a win/win situation between 3 high skilled research centres (LIU, P5-UE and UPM-CITEF) and one of the main rolling stock manufacturer (ALSTOM) will allow a real breakthrough in the field of design of Cabin desks for railways industry. 10 experienced researchers will participate to this program that is the start of a long term collaboration.

Main Results

End Users

Evaluation Methodologies

Fill with the evaluation methodologies. Evaluation methods already in the KB can be found in Category:Evaluation Methods

Publications

Application & Research Areas

Technical Areas

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