Transforming maintenance worksite safety planning on Sydney Trains’ rail network through a bespoke PWA app
Sydney Trains is a division of NSW Transport and runs the rail network in and around Sydney. The network covers over 813km of track with 170 stations on eight lines.
Our client Rail Safe is a subdivision of Sydney Trains responsible for the planning and execution of safe maintenance works across the network. Before any work can begin, Protection Officers (POs) must create worksite protection plans that outline clearly where the maintenance work is happening and what protections will be in place for the time period it is scheduled for.
Prior to this project, the entire process was paper-driven, POs would print thousands of maps each day and draw everything up by hand. We set out to build a PWA app that POs could use to create their protection plans in an easy, standardised way that would allow them to share them with the maintenance crews and other stakeholders for reviews and audits.
I was the UX Consultant at Squiz working on this project with Sydney Trains as our client. I led research and design activities end-to-end up to the final UI which was done by a specialist UI designer as well as stakeholder management throughout the project.
This project included:
Conducting user interviews resulting in a summary report of insights
Creation of personas and journey maps
Designing and facilitating client stakeholder workshops and sketching sessions
Creation of wireframes and a clickable concept prototype
Concept testing of prototype with 5 users
Iteration based on feedback and handover for UI designer to create the high-fidelity designs
Attending weekly client meetings to provide timely updates and keep the client’s internal stakeholders and senior management across the activities as well as to raise and discuss any relevant constraints or workarounds.
We also worked closely with the Human Factors team at Sydney trains for this project who attended our workshops as observers and ran assessments to understand risks of human error with our solution as well as how they would integrate use of tablet devices and our new system. They would later run their own testing to assess for example, the use of devices in different weather conditions, in areas of poor internet connection and whether accessories such as stylus pens would be required.
My role
Discovery
Stakeholder kick-off
I facilitated a kick-off with the client stakeholders and the team from Squiz to understand the key objectives for the project and what was in/out of scope.
We learned which key roles we would need to understand deeply and some top-level details around the benefits and pitfalls of the current processes.
The scope was constrained around this specific solution and we learned it would be challenging to venture too far into a service design piece or to consider integrations with other solutions such as the geospatial mapping software used to create the maps.
User interviews
This was a very complex environment and there was a huge amount of jargon and processes to get my head around. I needed to understand not only the roles of the POs but also how their roles interface with their key stakeholders while they undertook their planning duties.
I interviewed POs and their stakeholders and spent time having them show me the steps they take to complete a worksite protection plan. Paying close attention to what information they needed, what was easy or challenging. It became clear that every PO had their own way of doing things and their outputs were very different across the organisation.
Worksite protection planning is a complex process in a safety-critical environment requiring the PO needing to reference many rules and safety regulations. They use a tiered system of protections which depends on the scope of the maintenance work involved - ranging from a low level of safety protections with little impact to the rail corridor up to a very high level where for example rails might be cut, points are clipped, signals must be changed or speed limits introduced.
The PO marks up pre-printed diagrams of the area where the work will take place with coloured highlighter pens to visualise the plan, then fills out a number of forms to create a workbook.
The workbook must be shared with a number of stakeholders and impacted parties such as the maintenance/construction workers, signallers, drivers and operations managers. They also have Rail safety coaches who are highly experienced with the network’s rules and regulations. They review the plans and mentor POs on best practice, ensuring standards are maintained.
I created quick proto personas to illustrate these different roles
I began mapping the steps for a worksite protection plan - firstly based on the knowledge I had gleaned during interviews and then held a workshop with selected SMEs from Sydney Trains.
Originally I had intended to create one map but this quickly turned into six! The tiered system of protections meant the steps taken to create the plans were very different - so we journey mapped scenarios for all six levels.
Journey mapping
We mapped each journey based on a scenario where the scope of maintenance works required was different so as to allow us to capture each process in its entirety
After the workshop, I pulled all the maps into spreadsheets and these were validated by the client SMEs offline - we added some lanes to track the documentation they would need to reference along the way
We prioritised opportunities using the MoSCoW method
Design
To kick-start the ideation process I facilitated a remote sketching workshop in Mural with some of the POs I had interviewed. I wanted to get a sense of what they envisaged from this tool we were about to create. It was challenging to get them sketching in Mural but eventually we ended up with some really insightful ideas that steered the direction for the early wireframes.
I then sketched out a rough user-flow as a guide and created wireframes to enable the PO to firstly find the correct diagrams they would need based on the information they will have been given and then begin marking up their diagrams using a bespoke maps editor.
For the maps editor, Squiz had previously developed a proof of concept model in React for Sydney trains that illustrated the technical approach to adding markups on a series of overlays.
Part of the challenge was to interpret what we had learned from the POs, how they like to mark up specific elements - and give them flexibility in the way they could do that, but still end up with a standardised output with the same visual language regardless of who was creating the markups.
We also had a series of other flows to cater for such as templates, favourites and dashboard screens for POs, Rail safety coaches (Reviewers), managers and auditors.
Wireframes and designs
Initial user-flow for PO to create a diagram markup
First wireframes of the diagram search and selection
First wireframes of the map markup tool
High fidelity designs of the diagram search and selection
First wireframes showing notifications and tooltips
High fidelity design of the map markup tool
First wireframes of the PO dashboard
High fidelity designs of the PO dashboard
What we learned
For this project, we were constrained within the scope of what was sold - the digital solution for marking up worksite protection plans, reviewing and sharing with key stakeholders but we achieved what we set out to do. That said, I came away with a sense that there was a missing piece - the service design element.
I believe that to implement true digital transformation, there has to also be considered thought for the people providing the service at an organisational level. If we’d had the scope to consider things such as the maps tooling and the people processes, we would certainly have arrived at a different solution.
But when you’re consulting and you understand the business reasons behind the scope of what you need to solve, you have to work within the constraints that you have.
The team subsequently won the “Safety Champions” category at the Sydney Trains Excellence Awards for this project which is a testament to the trust they put in us to help them improve safe working practices, reduce costs and promote sustainability.
Project overview
Company
Squiz
Client
Sydney Trains
Role
Senior UX Consultant
Year
2021