2002 Volume 43 Issue 2 Pages 63-66
Since the war, railway accidents have frequently been caused by human errors. As a countermeasure against this tendency, a system of aptitude tests was formulated in 1949. In about 50 years since the aptitude tests were introduced into railways, railway facilities and safety installations have considerably improved, whereas the system of aptitude test remains almost unchanged. As the railway technology has progressed in line with the modernization of vehicle technology, the aptitude and the level demanded for employees has changed together with the tasks of train running. We study the validity of intelligence test, one of the common psychological aptitude tests for employees who are engaged in train running of Shinkansen and narrow-gauge lines. The criterion for pass or failure of the test is different depending on job categories. In testing the employees engaged in the maintenance of track and electrical facilities, the criterion is higher for Shinkansen lines than for narrow-gauge lines. To discuss the validity of the criterion, this paper compares the maintenance work of track and electrical facilities of Shinkansen and those of narrow-gauge lines from the two viewpoints of validity for job contents and criterion-related validity with regard to the correlation between the test result and safety indices. The present results suggest that the criterion for Shinkansen need not be higher than that for narrow-gauge lines.