Real Time Simulation of Rail Dispatcher Operations

Cognitive task analyses (CTAs) have been conducted to better understand the thoughts and actions of modem railroad dispatchers. These have provided information necessary to any investigation of dispatching operations, especially the study of the impact of new communications technology on the dispatching environment. This project was conceived to provide an empirical test-bed for such technologies, in the form of a real time human-in-the-loop simulator. The report elaborates on the CTA background information, the design motivation, capabilities of the simulator, and it's software and hardware architecture. It was written with two goals in mind. First and foremost, it was written to provide instruction for both the participants and the conductors of any experiment based on the simulator. Second, it will help in implementing further functionality through code extension, by providing details of the underlying software. Thesis Supervisor: Thomas B. Sheridan Title: Ford Professor of Engineering and Applied Psychology