8.8 Choice of techniques

In the preceding sections, a number of human reliability quantification techniques have been reviewed from the point of view of their strengths and weaknesses. The question that arises is which techniques should be deployed for a particular human reliability assessment application? In Table 8.13 and the subsequent sections, the techniques discussed in this Chapter have been compared using a number of criteria. The evaluations will be useful to assist the analyst in the choice of a technique for a particular assessment.

It may seem surprising that the criterion of accuracy, which may appear to be the most relevant dimension, is omitted from the table. This is because, in reality, there are few real data available regarding the accuracy or otherwise of the techniques that have been reviewed. Although the predictions made by some of the techniques discussed in this Section have been evaluated against a small database of objective human error probabilities (See Kirwan [3]), there were a number of methodological problems with this study that made it difficult to draw firm conclusions regarding the absolute accuracy of the techniques considered.