TRAINING OF OPERATORS USING VIRTUAL REALITY SIMULATORS
Client:
ADIF, The Spanish state-owned railway infrastructure administrator.
About 80 percent of people ADIF employs are over the age of 50. By 2025, that workforce is likely to grow by more than half. ADIF has plans to hire an additional 6,170 people by 2025. All this hiring will likely speed up a generational handover that is already underway.
Virtual Reality is key to overcome the multiple challenges that this generational handover and rapid expansion are likely to create by speeding up and improving the quality of training for the next generation of railway workers in Spain.
For ADIF, Virtualware is introducing VIROO® to deploy safe full-scale multi-user VR simulators, in-person and remotely, comprising all railway construction and maintenance technical specialties.
The platform includes VR resources to train staff in a range of areas such as infrastructure and tracks, energy, electrification, signaling and control, telecommunications, station and terminal operations, rolling stock, as well as more general activities such as technical safety, occupational hazards, environment, traffic safety, and security.
Virtual reality makes it possible to transform the tacit knowledge of expert personnel close to retirement age into explicit knowledge, locking it on didactic support
Rafael Tortosa, ADIF Technician
For ADIF, ensuring a smooth generational transition in which the most-experienced talent creates room for the younger generation is a substantial challenge to address over the next few years. Knowledge and effective training are key. Individual know-how is one of the most valuable assets that ADIF wants to preserve and expand by ensuring it transcends from one generation of workers to the next.
ADIF is investing more than € 1 million over four years in VR technology. This considerable shift to digital will mark the beginning of a challenging yet exciting generational transition in which Virtualware and its VIROO® platform play a pivotal role to protect, pass and enhance the operational knowledge of a vital part of Spain’s critical logistics and transportation infrastructure.