Surveying the scene: the monitoring practices of staff in control rooms

Recent studies of work in control rooms have highlighted how activities in these settings are reliant on a range of tacit, social practices. Of particular interest to developers of advanced technologies has been conduct that has been characterised as “monitoring” or as “peripheral awareness” where individuals appear sensitive to other activities and events whilst often engaged in other tasks. We seek to re-examine how individuals monitor the surrounding domain and the activities of their colleagues. We take as an example a control room which requires the individuals within it to be aware of events surrounding it. The station control rooms of London Underground provide a range of technologies through which the personnel (station supervisors and operations room assistants) can survey the local setting. We look at how these staff utilise the technologies and how, with colleagues, they monitor the happenings in the world beyond the control room. Drawing on audio-visual recordings made in several control rooms and extensive fieldwork we suggest how such practices are organised with respect to the organisational responsibilities of the staff, a practical geography of the events which can occur in the local domain and the sequential import of happenings which are seen through the technology. We conclude by briefly outlining some recent technological developments which aim in a different way to support the work of control room personnel