Dynamics and Processes in Operations Control Centers in Urban Public Transport: Potentials for Improvement

Disruptions in public transport operations occur every day. Thus, providing a reliable system is a challenge for operations and planning. This paper gives insights into the dynamics and processes of operations control centers in public transport to reveal potentials for further improvement in reliability. Therefore, directors were interviewed, dispatchers observed, and operations documentation was studied. It has become obvious that the process of dispatching has four different types of call signals (assault, accident, missing replacement, and wish-to-talk) corresponding to different kinds of incidents. The drivers use those call signals to contact the operations control center and initialize different procedures of communication between the dispatchers, drivers, and other involved parties. As the communication is mostly conducted via phone or radio, several improvements are possible, such as training in communications and increased use of information technology in operations. In planning tools, the handling of incidents is marginally supported. As all kinds of incidents can affect the service, they should be represented in planning tools to design more reliable public transport systems. However, they do not need to be represented in full detail. Verbal communication could mostly be reduced to single decisions. Accidents, for example, influence the operation by delayed vehicles and blocked ways. The findings of this work allow a better understanding of operations control centers and reveal their potentials for improvement.