"BACKGROUND As from 15 May 2008 with the coming into force of Italian Legislative Decree 81/08 that rationalised and consolidated for the first time all the laws on safety into a single piece of legislation, risk assessment (Art. 28) has become more of a cornerstone of company prevention systems and therefore a nondelegable obligation of employers to implement the assessment process, Art. 17(1)(a). A correct method to be adopted in the assessment process must consider the estimate of risks associated with the human factor. This estimate is essential when, for example, in assessing the risk to which operators, and generally workers, are exposed during the use of work equipment (Art. 71).Human reliability analysis (HRA) techniques have been developed in order to provide human error probability values associated with operators' tasks to be included within the broader context of system risk assessment, and are aimed at reducing the probability of accidental events.OBJECTIVES None of the techniques reported in literature can be considered as the best, each one has advantages and disadvantages and can be more or less suitable depending on the context to be analysed and the available resources and skills.The aim of this study is to review some HRA techniques that have been developed by human reliability specialists and to carry out a methodological comparison in order to highlight the specific characteristics of each technique, so that they may be effectively applied in company risk assessments.METHODSThis comparison is based on the assessment of the model, taxonomy, data and method that characterise each technique.RESULTS A critical analysis has been made of these techniques on the basis of the underlying cognitive model, the associated taxonomy, the reliability of the available data, the ease or difficulty of use, whether operators' tasks were time dependent or not, and the number and type of contextual factors taken into consideration that may influence human performance, also highlighting the limits of applicability to sectors other than that for which they were created."

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