Abstract
This paper seeks to inform the ongoing redesign of air traffic management by examining current practices and the adoption of a new system aiming to relieve traffic control from work and reduce radio communication. We report from ethnographic fieldwork among mobile, distributed airport ground personnel. By examining the ways in which they use the ‘old’ technology, i.e. VHF radio, we identify a set of important aspects of work carried out through radio talk. These are: repairing misunderstandings, discussing the task-at-hand, and negotiating next actions. The new system fails to support this negotiation work, and is hardly ever used by the ground personnel. The distributed workers in the field make their own decisions and negotiate coordination with the tower based on local information. In this respect, current work practice is already decentralized to a certain extent. The problem with the new system, we argue, is the idea to decentralize the organization by providing distributed workers with more information, whereas the current institutional arrangement for coordination is built upon highly formal and hierarchical ideas. When redesigning the system it is necessary to take into account the ways in which radio talk is used to carry out the everyday work among ground personnel.
Authors are listed alphabetically
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bellotti, V. and Bly, S., (1996) Walking Away from the Desktop Computer: Distributed Collaboration and Mobility in a Product Design Team, Proceedings of CSCW 96, (Cambridge MA USA, 1996), ACM Press
Bentley, J. A. Hughes, D. Randall, T. Rodden, P. Sawyer, D. Shapiro and I. Sommerville; (1992) Ethnographically-informed systems for air traffic control, Proceedings of CSCW’ 92, ACM Press
Dourish, P. and Belotti, V. (1992) Awareness and Coordination in Shared Workspaces, in Proceedings from CSCW’ 92 ACM Press
Dourish, P. and Bly, S. (1992) Portholes: Supporting Awareness in a Distributed Work Group, Proceedings of CHI’ 92, ACM Press
Gerson, E. and Leigh Star, S., (1984) Analyzing due process in the workplace, ACM transactions on office information systems, 4
Goodwin, C. and Goodwin, M.H., (1998) Seeing as situated activity: Formulating planes, in Cognition and Communication at Work, (eds.) Engeström, Y. And Middleton, D. Cambridge University Press
Heath, C. and Luff, P. (1992), Collaboration and Control — Crisis Management and Multimedia Technology in London Underground Line Control Rooms, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Vol. 1 (1992), 69–94
Hughes, J., King, V. Rodden, T and Andersen, H., (1994) Moving Out from the Control Room: Ethnography in System Design, Proceedings ofCSCW’ 94, Chapel Hill, NC, USA, ACM Press
Hughes, J. A., Randall, D. Shapiro, D., (1992) Faltering from Ethnography to Design, Proceedings of CSCW’ 92, ACM Press
Hutchins, E. (1993) Learning to Navigate, in S. Chaiklin and J. Lave (eds.) Understanding Practice: Perspectives on Activity and Context, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Hutchins, E., (1995) Cognition in the Wild, MIT Press
La Porte, T, (1988) The United States Air Traffic System: Increasing Reliability in the Midst of Rapid Growth, in The Development of Large Technical Systems, (eds.) Mayntz, R. And Hughes T.P. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag.
Luff, P and Heath, C., (1998), Mobility in Collaboration, Proceedings of CSCW’ 98 Seattle, Washington USA, ACM Press
Luff, P. and Heath, C. (2000) Broadcast talk: Initiating Calls through a Computer-Mediated Technology, Working paper, Work Interaction and Technology Research Group, Management Centre, King’s College, London.
Luftfartsverket, [Civil Aviation Administration] (1997), Radiokommunikation på flygplats (UHF) [Radio communication on airport (UHF)]
Pritchard, B and D Kalogjera (2000), On some features of conversation in maritime VHF communication, Selected Paper from the 7th IADA Conference 1999, Birmingham. eds Coulthard, M., J Cotterill and F Rock, Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.
Michael, M., (1996) Technologies and tantrums: Regulating hybrids in the case of ‘road rage’, Keynote speech at the Conference Regulating Identities (Queensland University of Technology, 1996) 2–4 October
Sanders, R.E, (2000) Conversational socializing on marine VHF radio: Adapting laughter and other practices to the technology in use, in Festschrift in honor of Robert Hopper.
Sanne, J. (1999) Creating Safety in Air Traffic Control, Arkivs förlag, Lund
SCAA, Swedish Civil Aviation Administration, VDLmode 4 (VHF Data Link for CNS Applications) in CNS/ATM, issue 1, 19991029
Schmidt, K. and Simone, C., (1996) Coordination Mechanisms: Towards a conceptual Foundation of CSCW Systems Design, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 5
Suchman, L. (1987), Plans and Situated Action: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press
Suchman, L. (1991) Centers of Coordination: A Case and Some Themes, in Discourse, Tools, and Reasoning: Essays on Situated Cognition, eds. Resnick, L.B., Säljö, R., Pontecorvo, C., Burge, B., Springer
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Juhlin, O., Weilenmann, A. (2001). Decentralizing the Control Room: Mobile Work and Institutional Order. In: Prinz, W., Jarke, M., Rogers, Y., Schmidt, K., Wulf, V. (eds) ECSCW 2001. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48019-0_20
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48019-0_20
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-7162-5
Online ISBN: 978-0-306-48019-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive