Incident management in public transport - surveying dispatchers’ actions

Incident management in local public transport is the basic element to improve information flow and robustness for passengers in public transport. Dispatchers in an operations control centre continuously monitor the operations and intervene if the deviation from the schedule is critical or unexpected events happen. To understand the robustness of a public transport network, one must therefore understand the decisions taken by dispatchers. In the paper at hand a qualitative interview study is conducted providing first insights into the dispatching process. The study was conducted as a basis for a quantitative survey, which is essential for formalizing dispatching processes.