Abstract
High-speed railway (HSR) transportation poses a serious challenge to dispatchers, whose job performance plays a critical role for the safety and efficiency of the transportation system. This study examined the relationship between cognitive and mental factors and job performance among Chinese high-speed railway dispatchers and established a predictive model for the job performance of dispatchers. Cognitive abilities involved in train dispatching including working memory and multiobject tracking and potential related mental factors including depression, anxiety, perceived stress, and social support were examined. Job performances were measured by both subjective and objective indicators, i.e., the overall evaluation by supervisors and the delay time by dispatching simulator. Stepwise regression results showed that both cognitive abilities and 2 mental factors (depression and perceived stress) have strong relations with job performance, and tremendous distinction between groups of good and poor performance of HSR dispatchers is revealed. The predictive model accounted for 91% of the overall variance in objective performance indicator and has 96% distinguished accuracy of good and poor groups. These findings imply that cognitive and mental factors should be of great concern to the current practice of Chinese HSR dispatcher selection and management.
Highlights
With the share of China accounting for about 2/3 of the world high-speed railway (HSR) mileage [1], the daily transportation of China’s high-speed trains is about 1.33 million, which occupies 25.7 percent of the overall passenger traffic [2]. e HSR dispatchers take full efficiency and safety responsibility in conducting the high-speed trains’ running in the network
Mental factors including depression, anxiety, perceived stress, and perceived social support were measured through questionnaire. e conduction of the tests was in a random order across the subjects to control the carry-out effects. eir job performances were measured by both subjective indicator and objective indicator, i.e., the overall evaluation and the delay time
According to the threshold and the predicted delay time, the dispatchers were identified as Good and Poor. e validity and accuracy of the model would be tested by the comparison between the predicted group and the original group
Summary
With the share of China accounting for about 2/3 of the world high-speed railway (HSR) mileage [1], the daily transportation of China’s high-speed trains is about 1.33 million, which occupies 25.7 percent of the overall passenger traffic [2]. e HSR dispatchers take full efficiency and safety responsibility in conducting the high-speed trains’ running in the network. E HSR dispatchers take full efficiency and safety responsibility in conducting the high-speed trains’ running in the network. Aided by many automated equipment, the safe and efficient dispatching tasks still heavily rely on the HSR dispatchers’ multiple capabilities and mental states in emergency situations [4, 5]. Previous research studies on job performance of other occupations have listed possible impact factors: (1) at the level of organization, including the work environment, assessment system, incentive mechanism, and corresponding training [6, 7]; (2) at the individual level, including but not limited to job-related knowledge, professional skills, capabilities, stress, and emotional state [8, 9]. We discussed the predictive factors of HSR dispatchers’ job performance from the perspective of work analysis
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