Knowledge Management in Public Transport: a Portuguese Empirical Study

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate knowledge management processes in a metro company. We focused on core knowledge and its impact on the overall performance of a public transport operator. It presents a case study from the Lisbon-based public transport operator Metropolitano de Lisboa, E.P.E. The challenges of knowledge management in a metro company, such as time savings and efficiency, can be mitigated by the creation of a structured and target-oriented knowledge framework and information architecture that enables knowledge reuse throughout KM aims the company or/and in specific communities of practices. The current study seeks to investigate the role of signalling experts in knowledge management in a metro company through the use of a case study based on accessing the documentation required to deliver their technical outputs. Qualitative methods were used to conceive, design, and implement the specific experience under analysis. The approach involved semi-structured interviews with a sample of five core operational managers and an online questionnaire directed at the study’s core knowledge actors (90 experts) and a Delphi Study applied to the five signalling experts. The results showed that optimizing knowledge management leads to increased operator efficiency and decision-making. The findings of the empirical case analysis combined with the literature review provide useful insights to construct a target-oriented knowledge management methodology in a metro company. One of the study’s key findings is the relationship between decision-making and knowledge management tools. The findings of the empirical case analysis, combined with the literature review, provide useful insights into the awareness of an urgent target-oriented knowledge management framework in a metro company. This study was built on the available data from Railway signalling metro experts, which may be perceived as limited in the overall context. We consider that there is no special bias associated with this area of expertise and that the overall approach could be adopted and further tested in any other metro company, regardless of size. This essay added novel information to the available body of knowledge by providing an in-depth analysis of a core discipline of metro mode by addressing the accessibility to information by Railway signalling professionals.