The Advanced Train Control Systems Project taps the enormous recent progress in computer and communication science. The effect of high capacity data links will be to draw all elements of railway control toward the development of a single information and control system.
Because the fundamental purpose of organization is control, when control technology is radically revised, changes in the organization must surely follow. With ATCS, improved communication will obviate much of the need to replicate supervisory functions.
How would a new railway, born into the electronic age, be organized? The paper suggests a way of analyzing the decision taking function. New organizational structures should emerge which would take maximum advantage of information and control techniques.