An Assessment of Interventions to Improve Underground Coal Miners’ Ability to Self-Escape Using Human-Centered Design Methods

The literature lacks analysis of human systems integration approaches for self-escape in mining. This research aimed to gather feedback from miners to identify technological interventions that could support their ability to perform critical self-escape tasks. We solicited feedback on the usefulness of 21 proposed interventions to improve confidence in self-escape knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) and evaluate relationships between the interventions and specific demographic parameters of miners. We also analyzed decisions by miners to shelter in place or escape in an underground coal mine fire emergency in relation to how miners’ decisions affect the perceived usefulness of the interventions. This research utilizes a novel scenario-based survey to collect feedback from 116 miners. The results show that the miners ranked interventions related to self-contained self-rescuers (SCSRs) and refuge alternatives (RAs) as the most useful. Surprisingly, the demographic variables we examined did not differentially affect the perceived usefulness of the 21 interventions. Interestingly, participants who reported they would shelter-in-place (~ 48%) also thought all 21 interventions were more useful, with 11 out of 21 being statistically significantly higher at a 0.05 significance level. Future research will directly apply the results of this study to a series of proof of concept and prototype studies aimed at improving self-escape interventions through human systems integration.