Developing a better understanding of route knowledge

Route knowledge is an important issue for railways. Literature suggests that it is very important for train drivers to know the route ahead. This is acknowledged by the rules of most railway organizations who need their... [ view full abstract ]

Route knowledge is an important issue for railways. Literature suggests that it is very important for train drivers to know the route ahead.
This is acknowledged by the rules of most railway organizations who need their drivers to verify that they have route knowledge. This has widespread implications for railway operations especially now that railways are deregulated and many railway undertakings offer their services. It used to be that drivers had routes they drove often and regularly. Today, the necessity arrives that drivers drive routes seldom or on short notice, especially in freight transportation. This makes it quite difficult for the railway undertakings to keep their drivers well trained for route knowledge or makes it expansive if e.g. extra train drivers need to come on board.
For the future, we need new ways to deal with the necessity of route knowledge. Different approaches from new route training concepts to using modern cab technology are possible. As a first step in this direction, a detailed analysis of e.g. what route knowledge actually is and what it means to train drivers and railway undertakings is necessary. In our paper, we have a closer look at the German situation regarding route knowledge and will compare it with the approaches of neighboring countries. We will highlight situations which present difficulties to railway undertakings or challenges about the human factor aspects in today’s approach. We will then present results obtained by giving out questionnaires to train drivers. These questionnaires aim at learning about what route knowledge actually means to train drivers and if or how they subjectively use or not use route knowledge in different situations. We will compare how the official approach to route knowledge as found in e.g. rule books compares to the unofficial interpretation as taken by train drivers. We will draw conclusions about how to focus our future efforts to better understand route knowledge and to develop approaches how to deal with it in practice.