Workload Of Dispatchers Research Articles

Train dispatching program for high-speed railway station based on genetic algorithm

In case of train delays, centralized traffic control system become disabled, and the workload of dispatchers increases dramatically. Based on genetic algorithm, the author designs a program to appropriately reschedule trains in terms of delays, minimizing the total delay time and changes of gate. The author transformed the initial problem to a compromised combinatorial optimization model, with total delay time, changes of gate and conflicting routes as objectives. The high weighting in conflicting routes ensures efficiency and high probability of obtaining a feasible solution. With discreate variants, the author designs special coding and evolving method suitable for this problem. Using a special treatment for conflicts and initializing chromosomes, the program can construct new timetable quickly given the scheduled timetable, predicted arrival time and order of trains (optional), which promotes the efficiency and security of dispatching in high-speed railway stations. The method was tested with a synthetic data of Shanghai-Kunming section of Hangzhou East Railway Station.

Research on human-machine interaction method of smart grid based on meta-learning

As the size of the power grid continues to grow, the workload of dispatchers is becoming more and more powerful, and dispatchers alone cannot meet the daily dispatching communication needs. Voice human-machine interaction is a key technology in the field of artificial intelligence. This article proposes a smart grid human-machine interaction method based on meta-learning, this article proposes to use meta-learning to train language models and first-order MAML to optimize the initial model parameters. Experimental results show that after 20 epochs of training using less data, the speech recognition WER is reduced to 1.64% and the SER is reduced to 9.78%, which is better than the traditional hidden Markov model on WER and SER, and with the increase of training times, the recognition performance is gradually improved, and there is no overfitting phenomenon.

Improving Efficiency of Volunteer-Based Food Rescue Operations

Food waste and food insecurity are two challenges that coexist in many communities. To mitigate the problem, food rescue platforms match excess food with the communities in need, and leverage external volunteers to transport the food. However, the external volunteers bring significant uncertainty to the food rescue operation. We work with a large food rescue organization to predict the uncertainty and furthermore to find ways to reduce the human dispatcher's workload and the redundant notifications sent to volunteers. We make two main contributions. (1) We train a stacking model which predicts whether a rescue will be claimed with high precision and AUC. This model can help the dispatcher better plan for backup options and alleviate their uncertainty. (2) We develop a data-driven optimization algorithm to compute the optimal intervention and notification scheme. The algorithm uses a novel counterfactual data generation approach and the branch and bound framework. Our result reduces the number of notifications and interventions required in the food rescue operation. We are working with the organization to deploy our results in the near future.

Evaluation of Human Error Probabilities of Power Grid Dispatchers Based on Hybrid Risk Analysis Method

In the power system, the dispatcher’s inappropriate execution commands often have great impact on the safe operation and might lead to accidents. In order to further study the risk mechanism of human factors and calculate the human error probability (HEP), this paper proposes a hybrid risk analysis method called SD-SPAR (a System Dynamic Model for the Standardized Plant Analysis Risk (SPAR) Method), which combines the SPAR Human Reliability Analysis method with the System Dynamic (SD) approach to initialize a framework to model dynamic relationships between the Performance Shaping Factors (PSFs) and HEP. First of all, to reduce the uncertainty of grade division for the PSF stress and make the result of HEP more accurate, a physiological factor measurement method was adopted to calculate the dispatcher workload and help to divide the stress quantitatively. Second, based on the SD-SPAR method, the path dependence between the PSFs were summarized to reveal their influence on HEP and successful performance. Third, by analyzing the causality and feedback mechanism of the internal factors, the reasons accounting for incidents can be found to help analysts have a deeper understanding about the incidents, and to move forward improvement strategies to decrease the human error risk so as to achieve better task performance. This study can also be used to form the basis for the simulation of various control scenarios. It can help to explore better solutions to prevent and correct human error behaviors, and guarantee the safe operation of the power system.

How Airline Dispatchers Manage Flights: A Task Analysis in Distributed and Heterogeneous Network Operations

Equipped with technology, airline dispatchers interact with multiple entities to maximize the safety and efficiency of flights. How well the overall airline system performs is influenced by dispatchers’ workload. In order to assist future work in developing advanced automated technologies to assist dispatchers, particularly under high-workload periods, this paper presents an analysis of airline dispatchers’ tasks in a large operations control center. This is an important step in developing airline dispatcher workload simulations and other analytical approaches that assist in staffing of operations for dynamic operations, as well as estimating the impact of new technology on dispatchers’ workload.

IMPROVEMENT OF SUPERVISORY CONTROL OF TRAIN MOVEMENT BY MEANS OF INTRODUCTION OF OPERATIONAL ZONES

Purpose. The work is aimed to investigate the feasibility of transferring automatic control to low-density stations of the sections (according to the principle of supervisory control of trainline) to the operators at principal stations. Methodology. The article analyzes the work of heavy traffic sections of the Ukrainian Railways JSC. It was found out that the information workload of dispatchers who control the train movement at the sections of the main course, constantly exceeds the permissible level. The possibility of using the technology of supervisory control of train movement by the introduction of operational zones has been investigated. Findings. The authors found out that the capacity of receiving and departure tracks at the stations of the sections is extremely limited. The occupancy of run-around tracks by the out-of-work trains hinders any regulatory measures at the sections. Trains pass one after another without giving priority, that is, they pass through the section in the order in which they entered it. Due to the limited number of tracks at the pre-section intermediate station, freight trains are placed for run-around by the passenger ones at the distant approaches. This leads to a loss of service speed and reduces the level of utilization of the sections` working capacity. The introduction of operational zones will significantly reduce information flows and facilitate the work of the train dispatchers, create the necessary conditions for creative decision-making on the inter-sectional regulation, and will contribute to increase in the service speed of trains. Originality. The article developed a new technology to improve the management of train sections by dividing them into operational zones. In each zone, consisting of two or three run-arounds, the duty officer of the principal station, performing in this case the functions of the train dispatcher, can control the train movement. Practical value. It has been proposed to put trains from technical stations that idle due to uneven movement, especially the trains from the terminal stations (division points) of the locomotive circulation sections, to reserve routes of the pre-section intermediate stations. Laying the reserve tracks and their maintenance, taking into account the periodicity of use and reduced permissible speed, can be allowed according to less tight standards for the construction of the roadbed, ballast section, sleeper density, taking into account the use of switches and decommissioned tracks.

Preliminary Analysis and Simulation of Railroad Dispatcher Workload

Railroad dispatch centers increasingly use technology to assist dispatchers as they interact with multiple entities across a variety of tasks to ensure trains and track personnel function safely on an efficient schedule. A railroad dispatcher workload simulation could, therefore, be useful in estimating the impact of new technologies on dispatchers’ workload and overall system performance, particularly in the concept generation phase of a systems engineering process. This paper first discusses railroad dispatchers’ work analysis based on a large dispatch center and then presents the development of the Railroad Dispatcher Workload Simulation (RDWS), which generates models of dispatcher workload given various settings.

Ant colony algorithm for satellite control resource scheduling problem

With the increasing number of satellite, the satellite control resource scheduling problem (SCRSP) has been main challenge for satellite networks. SCRSP is a constrained and large scale combinatorial problem. More and more researches focus on how to allocate various measurement and control resources effectively to ensure the normal running of the satellites. However, the sparse solution space of SCRSP leads its complexity especially for traditional optimization algorithms. As the validity of ant colony optimization (ACO) has been shown in many combinatorial optimization problems, a simple ant colony optimization algorithm (SACO) to solve SCRSP is presented in this paper. Firstly, we give a general mathematical model of SCRSP. Then, a optimization model, called conflict construction graph, based on visible arc and working period is introduced to reduce workload of dispatchers. To meet the requirements of TT & C network and make the algorithm more practical, we make the parameters of SACO as constant, which include the bounds, update and initialization of pheromone. The effect of parameters on the algorithm performance is studied by experimental method based on SCRSP. Finally, the performance of SACO is compared with other novel ACO algorithms to show the feasibility and effectiveness of improvements.