Assessing network cognition in the Dutch railway system

insights into network situation awareness and workload using social network analysis

Journal Article (2019)
Author(s)

Julia Lo (TU Delft - Organisation & Governance, ProRail)

S.A. Meijer (TU Delft - Organisation & Governance, KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

Research Group
Organisation & Governance
Copyright
© 2019 J.C. Lo, S.A. Meijer
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-019-00546-7
More Info
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Publication Year
2019
Language
English
Copyright
© 2019 J.C. Lo, S.A. Meijer
Research Group
Organisation & Governance
Issue number
1
Volume number
22
Pages (from-to)
57-73
Reuse Rights

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Abstract

This study takes upon a group cognition perspective and investigates the cognition of railway traffic operations, in particular railway traffic and passenger traffic control. A table-top simulation environment is used to conduct the study, in which its design principles are elaborated upon. Network cognition is operationalized through communication content and flow and studied through social network analysis (SNA). SNA centrality metrics, such as degree, closeness and betweenness, are assessed in these networks. As part of the study, two cases are compared where operational procedures for disruption mitigation are varied. The dependent variables are the different types of communication network structures that are conceptualized for communication flow and semantic network structures for communication content. Although the quantitative comparisons between the two operational procedures regarding their communication flow and semantic networks showed no significant differences, this study provides a methodology to compare different conditions.