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The deeply embedded inequalities in gender which mark most contemporary societies have led to a world shaped by male perspectives. This world fails to accommodate adequately the needs and experiences of women: no more evident than in the transport sector, where a ‘default male’ perspective dominates the planning and policies that shape our roads, railways, airlines, and shipping. This paper argues that the ways in which masculinity infuses transport systems mean they are integral to debates on gender and work. They impact both the way women experience travel and their access to places of work. A multi-transport domain scoping study has been conducted to review the literature for key gender factors that influence the use of road, rail, aviation, and maritime transport modes. A multi-disciplinary approach is proposed which incorporates perspectives and methods from the social sciences that can help to foster Gender-Equitable Human Factors (GE-HF). Practitioner summary: This paper seeks to identify the gender issues related to transport and work. A scoping review provides key factors that detail how women are disadvantaged by current transport systems. It presents gaps in knowledge that future research needs to fill. Women must be included in key decisions within the transport sector.

Submarine control room layouts have remained similar across decades of operation, despite the introduction of new technologies that allow for the co-location of the sound and control room. Operation of an inwards, rather than outwards, facing ring control room configuration was examined in three scenarios: Return to Periscope Depth, Inshore Operations, and Dived Tracking. A case study design employed a serving team of qualified submariners participated in all three scenarios with high and low demand. Communications and activities in the control room were recorded and analysed using the Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork (EAST) method. EAST models collaborative teamwork through social, information, and task networks. The results from the ring configuration were compared to an outward facing baseline of the contemporary control room layout with a separate sound and control room. The ring control room configuration increased communications between operators, leading to a more information exchanged, and more tasks completed. Practitioner summary: Control room design on submarines, and other domains, has traditionally been outward facing with supervisory staff looking over the shoulders of their subordinates. In this paper, and inward looking control room design was explored, with subordinate staff facing their supervisors. This design resulted in more information exchange and productive work.

The delegation of tasks to a non-human agent in a sociotechnical system can extend human capabilities and performance. Effective performance is, however, reliant on a successful relationship between human operators and automation. Optronics is a partially automated system which has replaced periscope on board some modern submarine platforms, operating modes permit the completion of tasks either manually or utilizing automation. A reluctance to utilize automated functionality within the optronics system has been due to operator familiarity with legacy manual procedures based upon the use of a physical periscope. This highlights the gap that is prevalent between innovation, design, training and governance of automation utilization. The current work examined current (Control group) utilization of optronics technology using an expert population in a high fidelity simulator. Findings were utilized to guide the development of novel optronics specific standard operating procedures (Intervention group). Results indicate that automaton disuse was greatly reduced, which had had a positive overall impact on overall system performance with regard to productivity and accuracy. The current work highlights the importance of incorporating governance of use and training as part of an automation design and implementation program is critical to help 'maximize what you have'.

The manner in which control rooms are configured can impact the flow of information between command teams. Previous research revealed bottlenecks of communications between the Sonar Controller (SOC) and the Operations Officer (OPSO) in submarine control rooms. One way to relieve such bottlenecks is to co-locate operators reliant on one another for task relevant information. The aim of the current studies was to use multiple command teams to empirically examine a novel submarine control room configuration and a reduced crew size in comparison to a baseline of contemporary operations to see if such bottlenecks could be removed. Ten teams performed high and low demand Dived Tracking (DT) scenarios in a simulated submarine control room. Activities and communications of the teams were recorded and quantified using the Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork (EAST) method affording statistical comparisons with a baseline condition of contemporary operations. The findings showed that the co-location of operators relieved the bottleneck of communications between the SOC and the OPSO. Although overall communications increased, this was more balanced across the team and was more adaptive to scenario demand. This was coupled with a significant increase in task completion, even with a reduced crew size, suggesting greater efficiency and productivity. Future research should seek to validate the changes observed with objective measures of task performance.