Network Analysis as a Technique to Guide the Task Analysis of ATIS/CVO

Abstract

Applications of Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS) and Commercial Vehicle Operations (CVO) include technology ranging from simple sensors and alarms to complex combinations of databases and displays. This range of technology will impose a variety of task demands on drivers, and these demands need to be cataloged. Without a means of focusing the task analysis describing these systems, a complete description of all possible interactions among the potential functions of ATIS/CVO systems would be intractable. To address this problem, we have adopted network analysis techniques from sociological and anthropological studies of social groups as a tool to examine complex systems and to guide a task analysis. Network analysis provides a quantitative analysis of information flows that link system functions that can focus a task analysis on important functions and critical interactions between these functions. This paper describes measures of centrality and clusters and how these measures can guide any complex task analysis in the same way it focused the task analysis of ATIS/CVO systems.

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