Behind the Scenes : Unintended Effects of Increased Technology use in Operational Train Traffic

Information technology has been an increasingly pervasive component of most workplaces throughout the past half-century, and has resulted in changes to how, when and where we work. In operational train traffic, the main actors are traffic controllers and train drivers and their workplaces are no exception to the rapid implementation pace of new IT across society. The work of traffic control is performed in a control room—an environment that has long been technology-intensive, and automation is anticipated to play an even more increasing role in the future. At the same time, the train drivers that traditionally have relied on their “out the window” perception are now requested to work with a variety of modern driver systems and are thus exposed to more information technologies within the cab than ever before. Overall, the last two decades have presented a rapid growth of railway technologies, mostly with the aim to increase capacity. In this talk, I pose the question as to how this has affected the work practices conducted by traffic controllers and train drivers respectively but also how it has affected the collaborative aspects of their work