Government

Responder Emergency Lighting

Optimum flash patters for emergency service vehicles

Project Overview

This project for HOSDB was concerned with reducing the hazardousnes of emergency service driving by improving emergency vehicle lighting.  User Perspective was tasked to design experimental trials identifying the optimal flash characteristics for roof-mounted emergency lighting. 

A pilot experiment was designed following a literature review, interviews with serving police officers and an analysis of accidents involving police vehicles.  This tested reactions and perceptions of police vehicles displaying different emergency lighting characteristics.

The trials found evidence to suggest faster flash rates enhance a driver's appreciation of the emergency vehicle's urgency and the wariness of their driving decisions.  The experimental design will be used as a template for a large scale investigation in this under-researched field.

The Environment and Changing Behaviours

Project Overview

In a society which is looking to change human behaviours for envionrmental benefit, Transport for London (TfL) wanted to understand how people travelling to work could be helped to change from using their car to utilising public transport.  Using the science of psychology and the collection of real-world data we worked with a large organisation to understand the individual reasoning behind why employees used either car or public transport to get to work.  Barriers to changing behaviour were varied - including deeply held emotions, perception of public transport users and practical issues such as taking children to school and the ease of parking at the work premises. 

As important to understanding why people are reluctant to change is understanding what induces change and how to retain change on a long term basis.  Incentives for change were tested including perceptions of how others in the organisation travelled to work, free personal travel advice and travel cards. 

Other key issues to preventing change were found such as how travel information is presented and the differences between experienced public transport users and those who had rarely used public transport. Barriers and incentives for short term and long term change were identified and suitable methods for change suggested.

 

Accidents in Rural Communities

Project Overview

Buckinghamshire Council requested a Human Factors review of four junctions that were perceived to have problems with fatal and serious collisions. The review of the junctions considered any impediments to normal human vision and perception and further considered the incident data that had led to the works proposal. The focus of this project switched quickly from perceived environmental problems to problems with interpreting data. Only one junction required actual physical remedial work and that the remaining junctions posed no greater problem than the norm and had simply been a case of misinterpretation of data viewed in isolation, rather than as a holistic data set.

Additional Photos

police and crowd

Police Car

Collisions Involving Pedestrians & Buses

Project Overview

This project adopted multiple methodologies to address an increase in pedestrian/bus collisions in the main thoroughfares of Brighton town centre. Observational studies of the environment and behaviour of pedestrians, ergonomic reviews of the buses, focus groups of bus drivers, examination of Police STATS 19 data and fatal incident case files provided a multi-layered approach to the problem posed. Proposals for interventions were two fold – firstly, an education campaign via local posters and banners designed using the principles of warning design.  Advice regarding warning design was communicated to ensure that the safety message was seen, trusted and understood.  Secondly, based on 'real world' and scientific research, engineering work and road alterations were undertaken which allowed pedestrians room to make mistakes and also accommodate the differences that exist between buses and other forms of transport.

Seeing, Deciding & Acting

Control Panel Design in Security Specific Locations

Project Overview

This report presented a meta-analysis of our experience and findings from many projects in control rooms in multiple domains and with Commanders from bronze, silver and gold level. This ‘real world’ data was compared and contrasted to available scientific research in order to distil the multi layered knowledge into a short guide to human performance in the Commander’s domain.  Primarily the report aimed to support the Commander by providing guidelines for the effective control of situational awareness via tools, processes and training in order that he may SEE, DECIDE and ACT effectively.  We further sought to understand the effects of what has been seen; the decisions made; and the actions that followed; through feedback designed to continually help improve a Commander's ability to respond in a crisis situation.