Specifting occupational competencies of and proposing an in-service training model for railway dispatchers

Turkish Republic State Railroads, with a spread out railroad network, has done passenger and load transportation. Mean time, it has been facing an intensified competition of motorways transportation which is more effective and efficient with respect to railroad transportation. In order to be an organization which is profit making and continuously refreshing itself, it should serve comforting, economic and safely. In this respect, qualified manpower gains a strategic importance. Railroad train dispatchers, who are critical manpower of Railroad organizations, undertake important duties through managing railroad traffic, to make railroad transportation fast, safe, effective and qualitative. Railroad train dispatchers to meet these expectations, it is required to review their training curriculum based on competence. For this reason this study aims to specify train dispatchers' competencies according to the views of train dispatchers and their administrators working in Turkish Republic State Railroads and develop a curriculum structure to train them. To reach the purpose, this study consist of four chapters. In the first chapter problem, aim, importance, terms, scope, and limitations of study are explained. In the second chapter, model of the study, population, sample, data gathering and solving methods are presented. The population of the study consists of train dispatchers and their responsible administrators working in Turkish Republic State Railroads. Because their size is limited, sampling was not done, all of them are taken as sample, and study was conducted with reached population. Working population consists of 59 administrators and 1 80 train dispatchers. Return rate of questionnaires were calculated 84,5 percent and 80,8 percent for dispatchers and their administrators respectively.VI The expected competencies of train dispatchers were specified through work analysis method. Questionnaires were developed accordingly, and competencies were respecified according to the evaluations of subject groups. In the third chapter, data, related calculations such as percentages, frequencies, means, standard deviations and t-values and their tables, and related interpretations were presented, in the fourth chapter, the study was summarized, and reached conclusions were explained. Besides, a general curriculum structure was developed to train railroad train dispatchers according to gathered and analyzed data and necessary suggestions were presented.