Summary

The rapid technical development of train traffic systems, together with increasing control demands, makes it necessary to develop new support systems for the train dispatchers. The dispatchers ’ support systems must have an appropriate functionality and a high usability. In order to design such control systems, we need a model of the complete train traffic system. This model must fulfil a set of different requirements. Main requirements concern descriptions of the relations between the goals for the planning and control of the train traffic system, i.e. the control objectives, and the strategies and performance of the operators. The model must also describe the technical support systems, the information systems and the dispatchers ’ use of these. A set of observation interviews have been performed, documented and analysed according to the described model structure. The analysis has resulted in a number of important conclusions for the design of a new generation of control support systems and of the operators ’ interfaces to these systems. Key words Train traffic control, systems analysis, user interface design, decision suppor