Information Collection: Collection of Operator Simulator Training Data

AGENCY:

Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION:

Notice of submission to the Office of Management and Budget; request for comment.

SUMMARY:

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has recently submitted a request for renewal of an existing collection of information to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. The information collection is entitled, “Collection of Operator Simulator Training Data.”

DATES:

Submit comments by November 1, 2017.

ADDRESSES:

Submit comments directly to the OMB reviewer at: Aaron Szabo, Desk Officer, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (3150-XXXX), NEOB-10202, Office of Management and Budget, Washington, DC 20503; telephone: 202-395-3621, email: oira_submission@omb.eop.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

David Cullison, NRC Clearance Officer, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001; telephone: 301-415-2084; email: INFOCOLLECTS.Resource@nrc.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments

A. Obtaining Information

Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2017-0039 when contacting the NRC about the availability of information for this action. You may obtain publicly-available information related to this action by any of the following methods:

• Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2017-0039.
• NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS): You may obtain publicly-available documents online in the ADAMS Public Documents collection at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. To begin the search, select “ADAMS Public Documents” and then select “Begin Web-based ADAMS Search.” For problems with ADAMS, please contact the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR) reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by email to pdr.resource@nrc.gov. The supporting statements are available in ADAMS under Accession No. ML17248A445 and ML17248A446, respectively.
• NRC's PDR: You may examine and purchase copies of public documents at the NRC's PDR, Room O1-F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852.
• NRC's Clearance Officer: A copy of the collection of information and related instructions may be obtained without charge by contacting the NRC's Clearance Officer, David Cullison, Office of the Chief Information Officer, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001; telephone: 301-415-2084; email: INFOCOLLECTS.Resource@NRC.GOV.

B. Submitting Comments

The NRC cautions you not to include identifying or contact information in comment submissions that you do not want to be publicly disclosed in your comment submission. All comment submissions are posted at http://www.regulations.gov and entered into ADAMS. Comment submissions are not routinely edited to remove identifying or contact information.

If you are requesting or aggregating comments from other persons for submission to the OMB, then you should inform those persons not to include identifying or contact information that they do not want to be publicly disclosed in their comment submission. Your request should state that the NRC does not routinely edit comment submissions to remove such information before making the comment submissions available to the public or entering the comment submissions into ADAMS.

II. Background

Under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35), the NRC recently submitted a request for renewal of an existing collection of information to OMB for review entitled, “Collection of Operator Simulator Training Data.” The NRC hereby informs potential respondents that an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and that a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.

The NRC published a Federal Register notice with a 60-day comment period on this information collection on June 27, 2017 (82 FR 29119).

1. The title of the information collection: “Collection of Operator Simulator Training Data.”

2. OMB approval number: xxxx-xxxx.

3. Type of submission: Voluntary.

4. The form number if applicable: N/A.

5. How often the collection is required or requested: Six per year.

6. Who will be required or asked to respond: All holders of, or applicants for, a power reactor operating license under part 50 of title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR), “Domestic Licensing of Production and Utilization Facilities,” except those that have certified that they have permanently ceased operations and have permanently removed all fuel from the reactor vessel.

All holders of, or applicants for, a power reactor combined license under 10 CFR part 52, “Licenses, Certifications, and Approvals for Nuclear Power Plants.”

7. The estimated number of annual responses: 95.

8. The estimated number of annual respondents: 15.

9. An estimate of the total number of hours needed annually to comply with the information collection requirement or request: 411 hours.

10. Abstract: This information collection request is to the holders of, or applicants for, a power reactor operating license under 10 CFR part 50, “Domestic Licensing of Production and Utilization Facilities,” except those that have certified that they have permanently ceased operations and have permanently removed all fuel from the reactor vessel, and the holders of, or applicants for, a power reactor combined license under 10 CFR part 52, “Licenses, Certifications, and Approvals for Nuclear Power Plants.”

This information collection is for the specified licensees to use the NRC-developed Scenario Authoring, Characterization and Debriefing Application (SACADA) software for their operator simulator training. The SACADA system was developed to collect licensed operator simulator training data to inform human reliability analysis (HRA) and to facilitate operator simulator training. The SACADA software can be used to author the simulation scenarios, facilitate the post simulation debriefing on crew performance, guide performance analysis, and generate various types of reports. The information entered into the SACADA database can be used to improve simulator training effectiveness and HRA. The South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC) has used the software for its operator simulator training since 2012 and has high regard on the software. The NRC welcomes more licensees to partner with the NRC to use the software. The licensees' participation in the information collection is voluntary. In the partnership, the NRC provides the SACADA software license, training, and technical support to the participating licensees, and the participating licensees grant NRC access to analyze the data to improve the NRC's HRA techniques. An agreement will be developed to specify the details.

To participate in the information collection, the licensee will notify the NRC contact that it is interested in evaluating the software. Then the NRC will provide additional information including an onsite briefing. If the licensee thinks the SACADA software could be beneficial, the NRC will provide a training session, the software license, and technical support for the licensee to pilot the use of the software in its simulator training. After the pilot study, the licensee will decide on whether or not to partner with the NRC on the information collection. Either party can terminate the agreement at any time.