HOW TO REDUCE RISKS RELATED TO BIOLOGICAL FACTOR IMPACTS ON RAILWAY TRANSPORT WORKERS
The paper focuses on impacts exerted by occupational biological factors on railway transport workers. The authors showed that these impacts resulted in significant social and economic losses and caused about 40 % of overall morbidity with temporary disability. It was also proved that a basic parameter of biological safety in a working zone was full conformity of air in it to requirements set forth by the existing standards. The authors justify the necessity to improve working conditions for railway transport workers allowing for adverse biological impacts. The following devices were created and patented: 1) a device to disinfect air indoors, with its basic working principle being combined influences exerted on air being disinfected, namely ionization and high frequency ultrasound exposure with frequency being within 1 to 3 MHz range; 2) a shock absorber for an elevator shaft made up of materials unsusceptible to pathogenic microorganisms. The paper contains two variants of designed specifications for an air-disinfecting device: for small volume rooms (up to 300 m3) and for greater ones, their volume being up to 5.000 m3. If shock absorbers which we suggest are applied instead of bio-destructive ones, it will allow to eliminate a major source of pathogenic microorganisms and mold fungi in administrative, communal, and passenger premises. Besides, the authors showed that the developed shock absorber was more efficient in emergency cases due to being made of materials with different density, two-layer structure, and vertical layout of its elements. A predicted social and economic effect which we can expect due to implementation of the proposed working conditions improvements was assessed in conformity with the guidelines approved by the Federal Law No. 255-FL issued on December 29, 2006.