Copyright «>IFAC Analysis, Design and Evaluation of

Human-Machine Systems, Kassel, Germany, 2001

COGNITIVE ERGONOMICS PRINCIPLES FOR RE-DESIGNING FUNCTION ALLOCATION AND

INTERFACES OF A FIRE FIGHTING CONTROL ROOM OF A LARGE CITY

A. Perassi*, P.c. Cacciabueo

*Politecnico di Torino, Dpt. of Aeronautical & Space Engineering,

C.so Duca degli Abruzzi, 24
10129 Torino, Italy
Phone: +39011 5646858- Fax: +39011 5646899
Email: aperassi@athena.polito.it

°EC, Joint Research Centre

Institute for Systems, Informatics and Safety, Human Factors Sector
21020 Ispra (V A), Italy
Phone: +390332789869 - Fax: +390332 785813
Email: pietro.cacciabue@irc.it

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to describe and discuss, fIrstly, how cogmtIve
ergonomics principles have been applied for the evaluation of the activities carried out in
the main control room of a fIre fighting system of a large city. The same principles, coupled
with engineering creativity, have then been applied for re-designing the allocation of
functions and interfaces in order to improve efficiency of communication, decision making
and working context. Copyrightf) 2001 IFAC.

Keywords: Cognitive Ergonomics - Work organisation - Human-centred design - Cognitive

task analysis, task and function allocation - Design of interfaces - Support for system
operation, maintenance, and supervision - Fire fighting systems.

1. INTRODUCTION "models of human-machine interaction (HMI)". They

In this paper, the efficiency of the fIre fighting
control room with respect to its aims and working
conditions have been evaluated. A method has been
applied that combines "classic" cognitive ergonomics
principles (Sheridan, 1992; Re, 1995; Salvendy,
1998) with more recent concepts of task/job analysis
(Sheridan, 1999; S0resen, 1999; Riera, 2001). The
sequence of analytical steps has been formalised in a
general framework (Cacciabue, 1997, 2000) that has
been tailored to the working environment of fIre
fighting system. This framework considers two basic
steps: Firstly a retrospective assessment of the
existing working systems, and then a prospective
study for proposing solutions (Fig. 1).
These two steps are complementary forms of the
same process which aims at assessing the working
condition of a system. Their commonalties and
differences need to be clearly recognised in order not
to generate confusion. Retrospective analyses are
oriented to understand and evaluate working contexts
and identify root causes of accidents. They combine
"Study of accidents/incidents", "Cognitive Task
Analysis", "Evaluation of working contexts" and
provide "data and parameters" for prospective type
studies. Prospective analyses aim at the "Evaluation
of consequences" and evaluation of HMI scenarios
for safety assessment, design HMI systems, training
etc. They rely on selected spectrum of "Initiating
events and Boundary conditions", appropriate "data
and parameters", predictive "models of HMI", and
"creative thinking".
The procedures applied for performing prospective
and retrospective analyses bear some similarities but
contain also important differences. The
commonalties concern the HMI models and the
identification of data and parameters. In particular,
the HMI model must consider predictive behaviour
and human error, while data and parameters derived
from studies of real events and working environment,
are applied for prospective analyses. These common
elements should be well identified, as they represent
logical links between the two approaches.
While Cognitive Task Analysis and Job Analysis are
well established and formalised methods, the
evaluation of real contexts is usually performed
through visits, familiarisation with working

429
environments, and evaluation of procedures, danger in general, and this implies working in
questionnaires and interviews. All these methods can emergency conditions and in situations that are not
be categorised under the umbrella of "Ethnographic always foreseeable. In a large city, in particular, the
approaches". operations of fire fighters are very frequent and
require continuous co-ordination. The main objective
Evol of work. contexts of the control room is thus to receive and understand
Study of
(Ethnographic Studies) emergency calls, and to co-ordinate of operations, in
order to make the intervention effective and rapid.
Cognitive Task Ano/ysis

The fire fighting system that has bee studied is the

main central station of a city of approximately 1
~ million inhabitants and controls the interventions in

t Initiotity eMents &

Boundory conditions
the town itself as well as the neighbourhood (Del
Valli, 1987; Legge 1570; Legge 469, Merlin, 2000).
The management of the station (figure 3) is usually
carried out from the Central Control room and
X considers two types of situations: Ordinary
Management and Assistance Management

I
Creative thinking

Fig.l . Retrospective and Prospective studies for HMI

The logical sequence of steps that leads to the

performance of correlated retrospective and
prospective analysis is depicted in figure 2. This
sequence has been applied during the study of the fire
fighting system discussed below.

Fig.3. Management structure of fife fighting system.

Study of Working Environmtnt
• Cognitive Task Analysi51 Job Analyllill
• Plantvitiu
Evaluation of Proccdure!i
Intcrviel\~
• QUC!ltionnaire; 2.2 Analysis of Working Environment
Select:
Model or Operator In this case study, the following studies of the
I----~ . Mood .fSystem
• lnt~raction Model
working environment were performed: Plant visits
and familiarisation, Task Analysis, Job Analysis,
Study real ,iluatiOll':
Strudur'C sequence or
I DeriDe Artllysit: APIU'OKh I Evaluation of procedures, and Unstructured
n'mu overtime
h1a.tifyhulnn -l- interviews with different actors of the station.
behlvlour Ind HMI

In particular, the analysis of the working

environment that followed the familiarisation with
the fife fighting system, was performed according to
I .. RFORM ANAL YSI' I a Hierarchical Task Analysis and a Job Analysis.
This led to the identification of a number of issues
Fig.2. Sequence of steps for correlated retrospective related to the activities and tasks demanded to the 4
and prospective analyses. operators of the Control Room (Figure 4). The
analysis of procedures showed that no formal
procedures have been formalised for what concerns
2. RETROSPECTIVE STUDY the management of a situation. The interviews with
different actors, e.g., Main Operators, Control Room
2. J The fire fighting system Supervisors, Department Co-ordinator, supported the
ergonomic evaluation of the control room and
The fire fighting system is supposed to intervene in interfaces.
any circumstance when and where people are at

430
 Acquisition of information
about type of intervention Open intervention management
Phase 1: required I-.----»~I programme for registration of
o Location data on intervention
Planning
o Flood/fire/social
o Persons Involved
· .....

Selection of type of
intervention required
o Location Update data
Phase 2 :
o Availability of squad ' ---I-------~,
Execution
o Expertise of manpower
available
o Send squad

,
Communication
o Headquarters - 'Squad
Phase 3: o Co-ordination Update data
Communication '* o Location and type
special intervention
of I---+--------'~I
Monitoring
· .....

Decision (in co-ordination

with squad 'In site) about y
Phase 4 : o Magnitude of intervention Close programme for
o Need for special _ ~ registration of data on
Assessment
intervention _ intervention
o Need for special machines
· .......
End

FigA. Logical links between tasks demanded to Control Room Operator.

A number of observations could be derived (Figure 3. PROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS

4):
The main operators have to perform too many
tasks, both from the cognitive and behavioural
viewpoint;
The interfaces are unsatisfactory for the expected
cognitive processes;
The tasks and roles of different actors in the
Control Room are not well differentiated;
The actual working context is not apt for the
complexity of the job;
The lack of formal procedures generates a
further level of complexity for the management
of situations.
The prospective analysis aimed at the identification
of possible solutions to improve and optimise the
control room operations. Given that many problems
were found in the retrospective study, it was decided
not perform a specific simulation of possible
interactions between operators and control system, as
this would have further complicated the optimisation
process.
Two different approaches were instead selected for
the analysis of working processes: analysis by
scenarios and analysis by functions . The analysis by
scenarios focuses on the assessment of the control
room tasks and activities according to the different

431
 situations that may be encountered. The analysis by In order to qualify a scenario, the model considers 6
functions implies that the control room is designed different characteristics (Fig. 5):
according to roles and tasks that may be assigned to Type of intervention
different actors. Magnitude of intervention
Dimension of intervention
Both approaches require that a set of formal Physical and architectural features of
operating procedures are developed as support to the environment
distribution of roles, tasks and jobs within the Conditions of people or animals to be rescued
management process. Both approaches aim at Possibility of worsening/development of
defming the type of intervention that will be intervention
implemented following a call from the pUblic. In this
paper, we will focus on the analysis by scenarios and
shortly discuss the analysis by functions, while a
complete redesign of the Control Room has been
Worsening
developed on considering of both types of analysis. possibility .

3. J Analysis by scenarios

Nowadays, the intervention management progranl for

the registration is done by a sort of list without any Physical and
architectural features
logical format. This kind of registration does not
guarantee a streamlined interface in order to save
time. This issue had stimulated the idea of a
intervention management organised by scenario.
Fig.5. Characteristics of scenarios
One kind of work management of ftre ftghting
Following the evaluation of a scenario, the defmition
control room foresee that the operators management
of the type of intervention that should be considered
ability and decision making is enhanced throughout
may be identifted by a tree factors code (Fig. 6).
the skills split downstream the scenarios. First of all
is necessary plan a typology interventions
classiftcation (i.e. similar to the existent one) based
on eight different kind of interventions: Intervention cod., example

ftre;
transport incidents;
radioactive and dangerous substances;
person aid;
animal aid;
disruption, collapse and damage due to water;
different interventions;
mobile column.
As eight operators are too many, the idea could be to
create some macro-category and to specialise
operators only on one of these. Only three different
categories are considered: two related with normal
operations and one to exceptional interventions. The
normal operations could be split into:
N.A., that includes person and animal rescue and
different interventions;
N.B., that covers transport incidents, radioactive
and dangerous substances, ftre and explosion,
landslide and crumbling, and flooding.
The exceptional category (E) includes, instead,
the mobile column and major damage.
Moreover, each macro-category is further split in
category and the classiftcation form follows this
general sequence and structure: macro-typology,
typology, sub-typology, and type.
Macr..type of intelVention A and B:
A identifies the category of: people
rescue . an im als rescue , IntelVentionlevelofpriotity:
miscellaneous. 1 to 5 for Normal intelVentions
Bincludes: incident to vehicles , 1 to 3 for Exceptional
washdown, crumbling and landSlides, intmentions.
flooding , explosions and fires ,
dangerous materials and
radioactives.
Fig.6. Intervention Coding from Scenario analysis
The ftrst two factors defme the macro-categories,
represented by either "N" for normal or "E" for
exceptional, and "A" or "B" for distinguishing
between sub-types. The third one defmes the level of
priority or seriousness. This is further structured in
level 1-5 for "N" type categories and 1-3 for "E" type
categories. Therefore, in the case of Figure 6 the
intervention, coded as NB3, would represent a
Normal Intervention, with implication of vehicles, or
ftres etc., of average level of priority.

432
For example, El could be considered an intervention
that could be managed by the provincial
headquarters, E2 at regional level and E3 a situation
that could be considered a national emergency. These
interventions sub-divisions from level I to 3 could be
managed by the operators, for level 4 and 5 and in
exceptional situations by a group of people. The
management structure of fIre fIghting system will
foresee two new operators and a new ability level for
the control room responsible. According to this
analysis the Control Room has been totally
redesigned by changing the number of operators and
revising roles and activities (fIgure 7).
Fire fighting
director
Fig. 7. Revised Management structure of fIre fIghting
system
In order to better understand the new tasks to be
carry out by operators, it is important to evaluate the
flow chart shown in fIgure 8. The main tasks that a
specialised operator has to carry out are:
Collect all information related with the
intervention scenario and transfer these on an
informatic tool that has to give in output some
information:
» priority level;
» convoy type;
» list of persons or offIce to contact.
Decide which kind of transport and persons to
send, if the priority level is :::;3 . Moreover, the
operator must consider:
» the available facilities ;
» the concomitance with other interventions.
Decide the kind of transports and persons to send
in collaboration with the Control Room
responsible, when priority is between 3 and 5.
Put into practice the emergency structure if the
level is ;:::5.
Send and monitor the different squads.
This kind of work implies good teamwork and, in
order to achieve it, it is important to provide effIcient
433
training to operators, so as to improve
communication skill. The communication could also
be improved through a good support tool and an
effIcient human computer interface that ensures that
each operator knows the intervention in a real time.
As an example, a maxi display screen visible to all
operator could be useful to share information about:
The geographic location of the different squads
with the related abbreviation and code of
intervention;
The list of the squads with not on duty.
Operators task flow chart
NO
J
CaI deviation
Iowards Con1nl1
Room
Coordinator
Yes
yH ----~ END
Fig. 8 Flow chart of operator's tasks.
Floods, earthquakes, landslides, fIre and other kind of
interventions that require good co-ordination and
contribution of a large number of transports and
persons could be included in the exceptional
category. It is possible to classify two main types of
exceptional interventions:
Located but wide interventions that require a lot
of transports and persons. This kind of
intervention needs effIcient squads' management
and co-ordination.
A great number of interventions scattered on a
large area. In this case, there are many
interventions to be managed at the same time.
Moreover, it is important to co-ordinate the real
position and state of the different squads in order
to reduce delays between interventions.
Moreover, in order to guarantee the correct and
effIcient work of the operators, in case of exceptional
situation, a totally new room has been considered
 with specific equipment for this kind of intervention.
The different tasks between the operators in this case
are shown in figure 9.
Specialised
operator-B-
Coordinator ;L----1I
~ and evaluations will be performed during the
r--
Operator
~ !r
Control room
~
re$ponsib~
rr--v Specialised
operator-A-
• •
Fig.9. Communication scheme-scenario organisation
3.2 Analysis by function
The analysis by functions has been performed
focusing on the tasks and roles of actors in the
control rooms, rather than the incoming situations.
The detailed review of this analysis will not be
discussed here for reasons of space.
The major outcome of this his analysis has been the
redesign of the means available for the operators,
according to their expertise, experience and task. A
completely new structure of workflow has been
designed.
The complete revised design of the Control Room
has then been obtained by merging the outcome of
the analysis by scenarios and by functions. This has
also led to the development of new interfaces for
supporting the new sharing of tasks and duties and
distribution of information amongst operators, as
well for supporting the decision making process.
4. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has discussed a methodological approach
based on cognitive ergonomics principle and on a
procedural application for merging retrospective and
prospective analyses of working systems involving
complex tasks and extensive human-machine
interaction.
The methodology does not propose new approaches
in the field of cognitive ergonomics, as the present
state of the art is rich of valuable theories and
models. However, the critical elements of this
approach rest on the correspondence that exists
between the studies of past events (retrospective
analysis) and the evaluation and assessment of new
design systems (prospective analysis). This
methodology has been applied to the evaluation of a
Control Room of a fire fighting system of a large city
and the fmdings of the retrospective study have been
applied for the redesign of the management structure,
1 the logic of intervention and the interfaces.
~ Specialised
operator-~
'rlI The new design will be utilised for the development
of the new Control Room, even if a number of tests
implantation process. These tests will be very useful
in evaluating practical applicability the methodology
to real working conditions and in further refming its
steps and procedural logic.
~ Specialised
operator-A-
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