Assessment of Human Reliability Under the Conditions of Uncertainty: SPAR-H Methodology Interpreted in Terms of Interval-Valued Probabilities

Abstract The well-known standardized plant analysis risk-human reliability (SPAR-H) methodology is widely used for analysis of human reliability in complex technological systems. It allows assessing the human error probability taking into account eight important groups of performance shaping factors. Application of this methodology to practical problems traditionally involves assumptions which are difficult to verify under the conditions of uncertainty. In particular, it introduces only two possible values of the nominal human error probabilities (for diagnosis and for actions) which do not cover the whole spectrum of the tasks within operator's activity. In addition, although the traditional methodology considers the probabilities of human errors as the random variables, it operates only on a single predefined type of distribution for these variables and does not deal with the real situations in which the type of distribution remains uncertain. The paper proposes modification to the classical approach to enable more adequate modeling of real situations with the lack of available information. The authors suggest usage of the interval-valued probability technique and of the expert judgment on the maximum probability density for actual probabilities of human errors. Such methodology allows obtaining generic results that are valid for the entire set of possible distributions (not only for one of them). The modified methodology gives possibility to derive final assessments of human reliability in interval form indicating “the best case” and “the worst case.” A few numerical examples illustrate the main stages of the suggested procedure.