An Agent-based Approach for Structured Modeling, Analysis and Improvement of Safety Culture

Safety culture is broadly recognized as important for operational safety in various fields, including air traffic management, power plant control and health care. Previous studies addressed characterization and assessment of safety culture extensively. Nevertheless, relations between safety culture and formal and informal organizational structures and processes are yet not well understood. To address this gap, a new, formal, agent-based approach is proposed. This paper shows the application of the approach to an air navigation service provider, including structured modeling, analysis and identification of improvement strategies for the organizational safety culture. The model results have been validated using safety culture data that had been achieved by an independent safety culture survey study. © 2011 The Author(s)