USP Research Contributes to Enhancing Safety of CPTM Railway Workers in São Paulo
Research by the Faculty of Public Health (FSP) of the University of São Paulo analyzed accidents involving workers on the Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos (CPTM) lines, aiming to improve the safety of these workers. As a result, the company received a sentence of labor compensation, in addition to a Conduct Adjustment Term (TAC) based on the study.
Project need
According to Professor Rodolfo Vilela (FSP/USP), maintenance activities on CPTM lines have already caused many accidents — in 2011, there were nine fatal accidents and an investigation was opened to analyze these cases. With insufficient analyzes until then, FSP set up a line of research, with a multidisciplinary team, to deepen them and improve studies in these cases and the conditions of workers.
“We put together this team not only to understand the deeper causes of these accidents, but also to transform this situation that provided an environment favorable to accidents. It is also very important for the reliability of the operation itself, involving the safety of the system users themselves”, he states.
Research method
In cooperation with Finland, bringing approaches from the change laboratory method, Vilela explains that the activity carried out by the research adjusted and adapted the analyzes to national conditions and realities. “This methodology presupposes a learning process, so it is not a traditional research process that aims to produce knowledge, it also produces an internal learning process for people to learn and transform that situation”, he adds.
Regarding the study’s identifications, the professor states that one of the problems is the incompatibility between maintenance and operation, since CPTM activities do not end during the line adjustment process, highlighting the need for corrective measures.
“When we negotiated between the Public Ministry and the company and researchers, the idea was not to penalize the company, it would be like an alternative penalty to improve the work process, so a cooperation agreement was drawn up with this intention. , to carry out a historical and in-depth analysis”, he concludes.