Improving Dispatching Software in Railway Engineering

Abstract

The importance of connection dispatching increased in the last few years because it has a great impact on the quality of service for the customer. Thus, custom-tailored software was developed to optimally assist connection dispatchers in doing their work. To prove the suitability of the prototype software, a field study with a three-stage evaluation approach was chosen, consisting of User Diaries, Observation and Focus Groups. In this paper, we will focus on the Observation which was complemented by a short oral Questionnaire and the Critical Incident Technique. These three evaluation methods will be described with respect to structure and layout, procedure as well as results. Moreover, the suitability of the evaluation methods for use in a field study with dispatchers in the field of connection dispatching will be reflected and discussed before a conclusion will be drawn. Finally, a possible solution to adapt the software to the different workflows identified during the Observations will be presented.