Investigating on-call work in rail infrastructure maintenance
The use of on-call work in industry has now surpassed that of shiftwork and night work. Industries as a whole make use of on-call work daily as a way to maintain 24/7 operations whilst also reducing costs. Despite this, on-call work remains underresearched and no best practice or management guidelin...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Thesis (University of Nottingham only) |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2014
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/14347/ |
| _version_ | 1848791937611464704 |
|---|---|
| author | Cebola, Nuno M.F. |
| author_facet | Cebola, Nuno M.F. |
| author_sort | Cebola, Nuno M.F. |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | The use of on-call work in industry has now surpassed that of shiftwork and night work. Industries as a whole make use of on-call work daily as a way to maintain 24/7 operations whilst also reducing costs. Despite this, on-call work remains underresearched and no best practice or management guidelines are available.
As the first substantial piece of human factors work examining on-call work in the rail industry, this thesis has the overall aim of increasing the understanding of on-call scheduling systems of work, and also to provide recommendations to the planning and management of on-call work in the rail industry which may also be applied in other industries.
A semi-structured interview study with 72 rail maintenance on-call workers of Great Britain rail infrastructure owner and operator (Network Rail) explored on-call arrangements in place and the perceived unwanted consequences of this type of work. Anxiety, fatigue, and reduced well-being were perceived as the main consequences of working on-call. The findings also indicate that when discussing on-call there are three separate on-call situations; being on-call, receiving calls, and responding to calls; which influence the study variables differently.
From the key themes identified initially an on-call questionnaire for managerial staff was developed and data from across the country generating 479 individual responses. A two-week diary study (one week on-call and the week after) with 26 participants aimed to collect real-time ratings. Results indicated that working on-call was perceived as a leading cause of stress, poor quality of sleep and fatigue. This is due to the inherent unpredictability of on-call work, which is the key differentiating factor between on-call work and other types of working-hours systems. Receiving and responding to calls were perceived as detrimental to general well-being both to
workers and their families, fatigue, and performance.
The work performed for this thesis allowed the development of the first on-call specific framework that identifies not only the key factors at play but also the relationships between them. It presents a set of principles or theories that other researchers can use to guide future research and that industry professionals can use to deliver more human friendly on-call work management processes and procedures. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T18:36:27Z |
| format | Thesis (University of Nottingham only) |
| id | nottingham-14347 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T18:36:27Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-143472025-02-28T11:30:15Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/14347/ Investigating on-call work in rail infrastructure maintenance Cebola, Nuno M.F. The use of on-call work in industry has now surpassed that of shiftwork and night work. Industries as a whole make use of on-call work daily as a way to maintain 24/7 operations whilst also reducing costs. Despite this, on-call work remains underresearched and no best practice or management guidelines are available. As the first substantial piece of human factors work examining on-call work in the rail industry, this thesis has the overall aim of increasing the understanding of on-call scheduling systems of work, and also to provide recommendations to the planning and management of on-call work in the rail industry which may also be applied in other industries. A semi-structured interview study with 72 rail maintenance on-call workers of Great Britain rail infrastructure owner and operator (Network Rail) explored on-call arrangements in place and the perceived unwanted consequences of this type of work. Anxiety, fatigue, and reduced well-being were perceived as the main consequences of working on-call. The findings also indicate that when discussing on-call there are three separate on-call situations; being on-call, receiving calls, and responding to calls; which influence the study variables differently. From the key themes identified initially an on-call questionnaire for managerial staff was developed and data from across the country generating 479 individual responses. A two-week diary study (one week on-call and the week after) with 26 participants aimed to collect real-time ratings. Results indicated that working on-call was perceived as a leading cause of stress, poor quality of sleep and fatigue. This is due to the inherent unpredictability of on-call work, which is the key differentiating factor between on-call work and other types of working-hours systems. Receiving and responding to calls were perceived as detrimental to general well-being both to workers and their families, fatigue, and performance. The work performed for this thesis allowed the development of the first on-call specific framework that identifies not only the key factors at play but also the relationships between them. It presents a set of principles or theories that other researchers can use to guide future research and that industry professionals can use to deliver more human friendly on-call work management processes and procedures. 2014-07-15 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/14347/1/NCebola_PhD_thesis.pdf Cebola, Nuno M.F. (2014) Investigating on-call work in rail infrastructure maintenance. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. Rail on-call oncall on call fatigue |
| spellingShingle | Rail on-call oncall on call fatigue Cebola, Nuno M.F. Investigating on-call work in rail infrastructure maintenance |
| title | Investigating on-call work in rail infrastructure maintenance |
| title_full | Investigating on-call work in rail infrastructure maintenance |
| title_fullStr | Investigating on-call work in rail infrastructure maintenance |
| title_full_unstemmed | Investigating on-call work in rail infrastructure maintenance |
| title_short | Investigating on-call work in rail infrastructure maintenance |
| title_sort | investigating on-call work in rail infrastructure maintenance |
| topic | Rail on-call oncall on call fatigue |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/14347/ |