Browsing by Author "Chan, Wesley Tsz-Kin"
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Item Open Access Assessing professional cultural differences between airline pilots and air traffic controllers(Springer, 2020-07-10) Chan, Wesley Tsz-Kin; Li, Wen-ChinPast studies have found that values and attitudes influenced by national culture remain detectable in airline pilots, even after equalisation by training and organisational exposure. There is however insufficient research to ascertain if this relative strength of nationally-determined traits is because national culture is in itself change-resistant, or if it is because professional pilot training and international airline environments lack the power to impel shifts in cultural behaviour. Using a survey with items imported from the Flight Management Attitudes Questionnaire and the ATC Safety Questionnaires, this study compares the non-technical values and attitudes of pilots (n = 21) and air traffic controllers (n = 13) from the same national cultural background to examine whether the dissimilar pilot and ATC professional and organisational experiences bring about detectable changes in nationally-determined traits. It was discovered that professional and organisational exposure affected hierarchical relations between superiors and subordinates, levels of concern towards automation usage, and the desire for high earnings and career advancement. An understanding of how certain non-technical skills are changed by professional and organisational exposure has the potential to change training, influence equipment designs, and highlight issues in cross-cultural and cross-profession communications.Item Open Access A comparative evaluation of human factors intervention approaches in aviation safety management(Springer, 2023-07-09) Chan, Wesley Tsz-Kin; Li, Wen-ChinIn the Human Factors Intervention Matrix (HFIX) framework, human factors interventions are categorized into five different approaches and each of these approaches can be evaluated by five different evaluation criteria of feasibility, acceptability, cost, effectiveness, and sustainability. Although the outcome of evaluations can assist safety management practitioners in the selection of more viable safety recommendations, there exists a research gap on how the five different approaches differ with each other. In this study, overall comparisons of the five approaches in HFIX were carried out using the five evaluation criteria. Each intervention approach was also compared independently with other approaches in a pairwise manner to highlight comparative strengths. It was discovered that amongst the five evaluation criteria, only feasibility, cost, and effectiveness differed across the five approaches. Task- and human-based interventions were more feasible, whereas task- and organization-based interventions were rated more highly on cost, reflective of better cost-efficiency. Subjective differences in evaluation were also identified in effectiveness, showcasing that cognitive biases can exist within evaluative frameworks. The findings will benefit safety practitioners and managers in the selection and application of human factors intervention strategies, especially in resource constrained situations in the real world.Item Open Access Development of effective human factors interventions for aviation safety management(Frontiers, 2023-05-05) Chan, Wesley Tsz-Kin; Li, Wen-ChinIntroduction: In the aviation industry, safety management has moved away from capturing frontline failures toward the management of systemic conditions through organizational safety management systems (SMS). However, subjective differences can influence the classification of active failures and their associated systemic precursors. With levels of professional experience known to influence safety attitudes, the present research examines whether experience levels among airline pilots had an impact on the classification of causal factors using the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS). Differences in the paths of association between categories were evaluated in an open-system context. Method: Pilots working in a large, international airline were categorized into high (≥10,000 total flight hours) and low (<10,000 h) experience groups and asked to classify aircraft accident causal factors using the HFACS framework. One-way ANOVA tests were carried out to determine experience effects on the utilization of the HFACS categories, and chi-squared analyses were used to assess the strength of association between different categories within the framework. Results: Results from 144 valid responses revealed differences in the attribution of human factors conditions. The high experience group was more inclined to attribute deficiencies to high-level precursors and found fewer paths of associations between different categories. In contrast, the low experience group presented a greater number of associations and was comparatively more affected by stress and uncertainty conditions. Discussion: The results confirm that the classification of safety factors can be influenced by professional experience, with hierarchical power distance impacting the attribution of failures to higher-level organizational faults. Different paths of association between the two groups also suggest that safety interventions can be targeted through different entry points. Where multiple latent conditions are associated, the selection of safety interventions should be made with consideration of the concerns, influences, and actions across the entire system. Higher-level anthropological interventions can change the interactive interfaces affecting concerns, influences, and actions across all levels, whereas frontline-level functional interventions are more efficient for failures linked to many precursor categories.Item Open Access Evaluating cause-effect relationships in accident investigation using HFACS-DEMATEL(Springer, 2024-07-01) Chan, Wesley Tsz-Kin; Li, Wen-Chin; Nichanian, Arthur; Manikath, ElizabethThis paper addresses the ‘routes to failure’ in the causal chain of events as categorized using the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) framework. By using the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method to evaluate the comparative influence of each HFACS category on other categories, the present research aims to classify each HFACS category as either an overall ‘cause’ or an overall ‘effect’ factor, and to give each HFACS category a comparable statistical value of their overall level of influence. Analysis of N = 30 responses from aviation safety experts identified that frontline perception faults had the potential to influence higher-level preconditions, and that ‘Environmental Factors’ were found to have the highest overall influence amongst HFACS categories at levels 1 and 2. The findings support the use of the DEMATEL method in the selection and direction of safety interventions. Safety remedies focusing on ‘cause’ factors are likely to have additional second-order benefits on associated ‘effects’, and more influential categories are likely to be more effective in influencing overall system safety. The methodology can assist safety managers in selecting and prioritizing safety initiatives, especially when faced with issues such as monetary or time constraints in the industrial context.Item Open Access Future flight safety monitoring: comparison of different computational methods for predicting pilot performance under time series during descent by flight data and eye-tracking data(Springer, 2024-06-01) Wang, Yifan; Li, Wen-Chin; Nichanian, Arthur; Korek, Wojciech Tomasz; Chan, Wesley Tsz-KinIntroduction. Effective and real-time analysis of pilot performance is important for improving flight safety and enabling remote flight safety control. The use of flight data and pilot physiological data to analyse and predict pilot performance is an effective means of achieving this monitoring. Research question. This research aims to compare two forecasting methods (XGBoost and Transformer) in evaluating and predicting pilot performance using flight data and eye tracking data. Method. Twenty participants were invited to fly an approach using Instrument Landing System (ILS) guidance in the Future Systems Simulator (FSS) while wearing Pupil-Lab eye tracker. The deviation to the desired route, the pupil diameter and the gaze positions were selected for forecasting the flight performance indicator: the difference between the aircraft altitude and the reference altitude corresponding to the ideal 3-degree glide path. Utilize XGBoost and the Transformer forecasting technique to develop a forecasting model using the data from this research, and conduct a comparative analysis of the accuracy and convenience of both models. Results & Discussion. The result demonstrates that using XGBoost regression model had a higher prediction accuracy, (RMSEXGBoots = 42.29, RMSETransformer = 102.10) and its easier to achieve a high prediction accuracy than Transformer as Transformer forecasting method placed a high demand on debugging model and computing equipment. The deviation to desired route and the pupil diameter were more important in the XGBoost model. Conclusion. The use of machine learning and deep learning methods enables the monitoring and prediction of flight performance using flight data and pilot physiological data. The comparison of the two methods shows that it is not necessarily the newer and more complex technology that can build more accurate and faster prediction models, but building the right model based on the data is important for real-time flight data monitoring and prediction in the future.Item Open Access Investigating professional values among pilots, cabin crew, ground staff, and managers to develop aviation safety management systems(Elsevier, 2022-10-10) Chan, Wesley Tsz-Kin; Li, Wen-ChinProfessional culture differences resulting from occupational training and experiences are widely known to affect the behaviours of groups and individuals. Yet a research gap exists on whether professional differences can influence safety-relevant core values held within individuals which are typically considered a product of national culture. The present study compared the core values of pilots, cabin crew, non-managerial ground staff, and airline managers by evaluating whether professional culture influenced levels of agreement towards cultural concepts relevant to safety. Results from N = 317 aviation professionals found significant differences between the four professional groups on attitudes towards power distance, individualism, time orientation, and indulgence vs. restraint. Social and physical distance to headquarters, confined work environments, and loyalty to work interfaces affected core cultural values of power distance and individualism among pilots and cabin crew. Frontline pilots and managers opposed on time-orientation, highlighting the potential for conflicts on decision making due to differences in the perceived balance between safety and performance. Professional culture also influenced sociological preferences related to values of indulgence vs. restraint. The findings support the usage of core values as a basis for human behaviour analysis and highlights the importance to include cultural ergonomics concepts when devising organisational safety management strategies.Item Open Access Report of the working group to identify future challenges faced by the implementation of resource management in remote and distributed teams(Springer, 2024-06-01) Harris, Don; Chan, Wesley Tsz-Kin; Chatzi, Anna; Griebel, Hannes; Li, Wen-Chin; Lu, Ting-Ting; McCarthy, Pete; Nakanishi, Miwa; Plioutsias, Tassos; Ziakkas, DimitriosCrew Resource Management (CRM) was introduced on the commercial aircraft flight deck to promote pilots acting in a well-coordinated manner. This was a result of several accidents where aircraft with no, or minor technical faults, crashed from a failure to utilize effectively the human resources available on the flight deck. CRM draws upon the disciplines of management science, organizational and social psychology. It originated in civil aviation, but its practices have now been adopted in other high-risk, high-performance industries where staff work in coordinated teams, e.g. Air Traffic Control, surgery, nuclear power operations and shipping. CRM is now facing new challenges to promote effective, coordinated teamwork. Teams are often now distributed across many locations but are still required to coordinate their activities in real time. CRM now must evolve to support the actions of remote and distributed teams. At the 2023 HCI International Conference in Copenhagen, a working group formed from subject matter experts to identify application areas and describe the key challenges faced in promoting CRM for remoted and distributed teams both during normal and non-normal operations. This paper describes the workings and initial findings of this working group. The results show that process areas, such as such as promoting Team Situation Awareness, workload management, coordination, and monitoring of the cognitive and affective states of others are more important for developing remote and distributed team CRM than are addressing the limitations imposed by the underpinning technology.Item Open Access Self-organising maps for comparing flying performance using different inceptors(Springer, 2024-06-01) Nichanian, Arthur; Li, Wen-Chin; Korek, Wojciech Tomasz; Wang, Yifan; Chan, Wesley Tsz-KinThis paper addresses a new data analysis method which is suitable to cluster flight data and complement current exceedance-based flight data monitoring programmes within an airline. The data used for this study consists of 296 simulated approaches from 4.5 NM to 1 NM to the runway threshold, flown by 74 participants (both pilots and non-pilots) with either a conventional sidestick or a gamepad in the future flight simulator at Cranfield University. It was clustered and analysed with the use of Kohonen’s Self-Organising Maps (SOM) algorithm. The results demonstrate that SOM can be a meaningful indicator for safety analysts to accurately cluster both optimal and less-optimal flying performance. This methodology can therefore complement current deviation-based flight data analyses by highlighting day-to-day as well as exceptionally good performance, bridging the cap of current analyses with safety-II principles.