How Shift Work and Burnout Affect Train Driver Performance and Railway Safety

“

For train drivers: Shift work does not automatically lead to poor performance. However, demanding or irregular schedules can increase burnout, particularly when recovery is insufficient. Maintaining adequate rest and recognising early signs of fatigue are therefore important for sustained alertness and safe performance. For PT KAI and railway managers: Burnout should be treated as an organisational and operational risk, rather than solely as an individual employee issue. Better shift design, sufficient recovery periods, fatigue monitoring, and employee support can help protect performance and safety. The study shows that burnout has a much stronger negative relationship with performance than the direct relationship between shift work and performance. For HR managers: Employee well-being and operational performance are closely connected. Human resource policies should integrate shift scheduling with burnout prevention, workload management, recovery arrangements, and psychological support, especially for safety-critical occupations. For policymakers and transport regulators: Working-time regulations should be complemented by broader fatigue-risk management policies. The study highlights international practices from Japan and China and notes that Indonesia has yet to fully implement structured recovery systems, biometric fatigue monitoring, and standardised shift rotation comparable with these approaches. For public transportation organisations: The broader lesson is that safer transportation depends not only on technology and operating procedures, but also on how organisations manage the people responsible for safety-critical operations. Preventing burnout can therefore contribute simultaneously to employee well-being, service performance, and public safety.

”