Keywords: system theory, track geometry deterioration, barrier model, performance shaping factor, human error assessment and reduction techniques, Markov chain transition.

The background part of this work was firstly to learn the history of incident data at the SMIS and AEAT Rail derailment database, attributed to the causal factors analysis and the preliminary statistics process. The review of the vehicle acceptance test included the Y/Q derailment criterion and the bogie rotation inspection demonstrated the major technical reason. The track geometry deterioration model was calculated in the Markov Chain transition probabilistic model. The work explained the case analysis in the Porthkerry derailment: the track Vertical Longitudinal Split (VLS) failure mechanism study, the Heworth derailment: the track geometry degradation and Human Reliability Analysis (HRA), the Camden derailment: the freight train unevenly loading derailment compliant to the standard intervention. The preliminary analysis is not efficient to answer the Long-term questions in the Freight Train Derailments, regarding to this Social-Technic system perspective, including technical reason, human and organizational environment as well as the railway subsystems. The final objective of this work is to assess barrier failure probabilities from a human reliability perspective, employing methods such as the Human Error Assessment and Reduction Techniques (HEART) and Error Producing Condition (EPCs) approaches.

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