Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Dispatcher |
DispatcherNoun1. The official who signals the beginning of a race or competition. 2. Employee of a transportation company who controls the departures of vehicles according to weather conditions and in the interest of efficient service. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "dispatcher" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1915. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Computing | A program in the operating system that chooses the next task to execute from the group of currently active tasks after an interrupt has occurred. Source: European Union. (references) |
Mining | A. An employee who controls or keeps track of the traffic on haulageways and informs workers when to move trains or locomotives b. See:motor boss c. A person or electronic device that routes haulage trucks to shovels or directs trucks from shovels to one of several destinations: ore pass,crusher, or spoil embankment. (references) |
Occupations | Authorizes, regulates, and controls commercial airline flights according to government and company regulations to expedite and ensure safety of flight: Analyzes and evaluates meteorological information, such as speed and direction of winds, visibility, and presence of storms, to determine potential safety of flight and desirable route. Computes amount of fuel needed according to type of aircraft, distance of flight, weather conditions, and fuel regulations prescribed by Federal Aviation Agency. Prepares flight plan containing information, such as maximum allowable gross takeoff and landing weights, weather, and landing field conditions. Signs authorization to release flight for takeoff. Delays or cancels flight if unsafe conditions prevail. Studies weather and pilot's position reports and terrain maps to evaluate progress of flight. Recommends flight plan alterations, such as changing course or altitude, canceling stops, or taking extra fuel. Prepares log of flights, delays, and cancellations, and lists reasons for changes in schedules or flight plans. Must be licensed by Federal Aviation Administration. (references) |
| Coordinates railroad traffic on specified section of line from CTC (centralized-traffic-control) unit that electrically activates track switches and signals: Reads train orders and schedules to familiarize self with scheduled runs, destination of trains, times of arrivals and departures, and priority of trains. Monitors CTC panelboard that indicates location of trains by lights that illuminate as train passes specified positions on run. Operates controls to activate track switches and traffic signals. Reroutes trains or signals LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER (r.r. trans.) to stop train or change speed according to traffic conditions. Talks by telephone with crewmembers to relay changes in train orders and schedules, and to receive notification of emergency stops, delays, or accidents. Records time each train reaches specified point, time messages are given or received, and name of person giving or receiving message. May chart train movements on graph to estimate arrival times at specified points. May operate teletypewriter to transmit messages to freight offices or other points along line. (references) | |
| Operates communication equipment to receive incoming calls for assistance and dispatches personnel and equipment to scene of emergency: Operates telephone console to receive incoming calls for assistance. Questions caller to determine nature of problem and type and number of personnel and equipment needed, following established guidelines. Scans status charts and computer screen to determine units available. Monitors alarm system signals that indicate location of fire or other emergency. Operates two-way radio to dispatch police, fire, medical, and other personnel and equipment and to relay instructions or information to remove units. Types commands on computer keyboard to update files and maintain logs. Tests communications and alarm equipment and backup systems to ensure serviceability. May provide prearrival instructions to caller, utilizing knowledge of emergency medical techniques. May activate alarm system to notify fire stations. (references) | |
| Coordinates movements of haulage trips (trains) in underground mine to or from working force or dump area: Schedules movements of trains hauling coal, ore, refuse, personnel, or supplies in accordance with capacity of system, interval between trains, and length and direction of trains. Directs movements of special vehicles, such as emergency and repair railcars, to minimize interference with scheduled operations, using telephone, radio, or track signals. Reroutes trains in event of emergency, such as power failure, explosion, fire, or accident. Investigates cause of train delays, using telephone, and reschedules subsequent operations. Transmits reports of accidents or system malfunctions to repair crew and SAFETY ENGINEER (profess. & kin.). Keeps records of train movements, or monitors movements on lighted panelboard showing location of each train in system. May move controls to throw track switches and regulate movement of trains. (references) | |
| Coordinates scheduled service within assigned territory of streetcar, bus, or railway transportation system: Periodically observes vehicles along route to ensure that service is provided according to schedule. Investigates schedule delays, accidents, equipment failures, and complaints, and files written report. Reports disruptions to service, using radiotelephone. Determines need for changes in service, such as additional coaches, route changes, and revised schedules to increase operating efficiency and improve service. Drives automobile along route to detect conditions hazardous to equipment and passengers, and negotiates with local government personnel to eliminate hazards. Assists in dispatching equipment when necessary. Recommends promotions and disciplinary actions involving transportation personnel. Inspects mechanical malfunctions of vehicles along route and directs repair. (references) | |
| Receives complaints from public concerning crimes and police emergencies, broadcasts orders to police radio patrol units in vicinity to investigate complaint, and relays instructions or questions from remote units. Records calls broadcast and complaints received. In some municipalities coordinates all police, fire, ambulance, and other emergency requests, relaying instructions to radio unit concerned. May make operating adjustments to transmitting equipment where station is not automatic and be required to hold federal license. May transmit and receive messages between divisions of own agency and other law enforcement agencies. May monitor silent alarm system to detect illegal entry into business establishments. May contact POLICE OFFICERS (government ser.) I 375.263-014 and GUARDS, SCHOOL-CROSSING (government ser.) 371.567-010 to verify assignment locations. (references) | |
| Locates malfunctions in telephone or telegraph lines, using switchboard composed of electrical testing instruments, and coordinates maintenance crew's work to remove malfunction: Tests lines to find cause and location of malfunction, using switchboard equipped with audible and visual alarms and electrical testing devices, such as voltmeter and resistance meter. Reports nature of trouble to inside and outside maintenance crews and directs and coordinates trouble-clearing activities. May dispatch maintenance crews to malfunctioning area. May contact subscribers to investigate reported trouble. (references) | |
| Dispatches interstate or long-distance buses according to schedule and oversees BUS DRIVERS (motor trans.) and BUS ATTENDANTS (motor trans.) while they are at terminal: Issues orders for station departure of buses at specified hours, according to schedule. Arranges for extra buses and drivers in case of accidents or heavy traffic. Announces incoming and outgoing buses over public address system in bus terminal. May supervise loading, unloading, and checking of baggage or express shipped by bus. May inspect drivers' appearance and physical condition prior to dispatch. (references) | |
| Establishes and reroutes telegraph and submarine cable circuits to ensure flow of messages: Orders irregular routing of telegrams to prevent congestion or wire shortage. Receives reports of delays in transmission of messages, and issues orders to facilitate transmission. Directs flow of messages during emergencies, such as storms, floods, and fires. (references) | |
| Receives telephone and written orders from plant departments for maintenance service, such as repair work, machine adjustments, and renewals or installation of other plant property, and relays requests to appropriate maintenance division. Keeps record of requests and services rendered. Requisitions supplies for maintenance and clerical workers. (references) | |
| Operates radio and telephone equipment to receive reports and requests from firefighting crews, fire-lookout stations, and mobile units, and relays information or orders to officials concerned. Maintains communications log and maps location of fires, men, and equipment from field reports. May organize and direct activities of firefighting crew. (references) | |
| Dispatches taxicabs in response to telephone requests for service: Maintains operational map showing location of each cab. Contacts drivers of assigned sector by radio or telephone to relay request for service. Logs calls relayed to each driver and address of patron. Arranges for relief cab or driver. (references) | |
| Supervises and coordinates activities of workers engaged in weighing, mixing, and shipping concrete and concrete aggregates. Performs duties as described under SUPERVISOR (any industry) Master Title. (references) | |
| Stamps, stencils, letters, or tags packages, boxes, or lots of merchandise to indicate delivery routes. Reads addresses on articles and determines route, using standard charts. (references) | |
Transportation | The person who dispatches vehicles or trains. Source: European Union. (references) |
| A person who supervises the exit of stores from an aircraft in flight. Source: European Union. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Synonym: DispatcherSynonym: starter (n). (additional references) |
| Synonym by domain: disp (computing). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Two keys were entrusted to the railway dispatcher who kept them locked in his office. (The First Great Train Robbery; writing credit: Michael Crichton) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Periodicals |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Gorham (vicinity), New Hampshire. Dispatcher in the Gorham district ranger station who sends out fire reports to the many fire wardens scattered through the district. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Dispatcher, streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Marceline, Missouri. A dispatcher at work in the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad offices. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Bell Aircraft Corp., Niagara Falls, New York. Dispatcher in the sub-assembly department of Bell Airacobras. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Women trainmen of the Long Island Railroad studying the bulletin board in the office of the crew dispatcher to get their train orders. Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | Ukrtracs offers 24 hour monitoring of vehicles location by a dispatcher and a two-way exchange of written messages for $79 monthly fee. As an additional service Ukrtracs offers distant monitoring of fuel levels in the vehicles. (references) | |
Economic History | Ukraine | UkSATSE has already modernized four ATC dispatcher centers using local technology and domestically integrated Western ATC equipment. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
Bill Clinton | 1993-2001 | Today, she's a dispatcher with the a van company. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Dispatcher" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Dispatcher" is used about 13 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 13 | 97,576 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "dispatcher": train dispatcher. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "dispatcher"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | dispeçer (despatcher). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | مرسل (consignor, despatcher, send, sender, transmitter), المرسل (despatcher, shipper). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | експедитор (forwarder, freighter), диспечер (yard-master). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 調度 (dispatch), 调度员. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | odesílatel (consigner, sender, transmitter). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | togleder (traffic controller), jobfordeler, flyveklarerer, flydispatcher. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | verdeelprogramma, uitvoeringsprogramma, treinregelaar (traffic controller), karweiplanningsprogramma, CVL-treindienstleider (traffic controller), conducteur (conductor, driver, guard), afwerper. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | suorittaja, lähettäjä (consigner, sender). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | distributeur (dispenser, distributor), dispatcher, regulateur, répartiteur des commandes, répartiteur (distributor), régulateur (dimmer), largueur, expéditionnaire, expéditeur (dispatching), agent de quai chargé de l'exploitation des trains. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | verteiler (allocator, contributor, dispenser, distribution list, distributor, distributors, divider, terminal block), dispatcher. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | κλειδούχος (operator, pointsman, signalman, switchman), ρυθμιστής (regulator), σταθμάρχης (stationmaster), επιβλέπων (overlooking), επιλογέας (selecting switch, selector, selector switch), ελεγκτής (checker, controller, inspector), αποστολέασ (consigner, expediter, sender). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | diszpécser. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | distributore (dealer, dispenser, distributor, machine), dirigente centrale (traffic controller), direttore di lancio, smistatore (marshal, marshaler, marshaller, multiplexer), indirizzatore, addetto al movimento dei veicoli. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | ディーゼル電気車 (daemon, daily news, day, day and date, day bed, day pack, day'n'date, dealer, debate, debug, debugger, decay, decentralization, deduction, deep, deep kiss, default, defender, Defender Plan, defense, definition, delay, delayed steal, delay-line, demand-pull inflation, deoxyribo, depletion, deregulation, deschooling, describe, descriptor, destination, destructor, detail, detector, Deus, developer, device, dictionary, dieldrin, diesel electric car, differential gear, differentiation, diffusion index, digital, digital camera, digital voltmeter, dilettante, dilettantism, dimension, diminuendo, dimple, dinghy, dinner, dinner dress, dinner jacket, dinner party, dinner set, dinner suit, dip, diploma, director, directory, disc jockey, disclosure, Discman, disco, disco sound, discography, disconnect, discontinue, discotheque, discount, discount sale, discount store, discover, discoverer, discrete, discussion, disinflation, disk, disk brake, disk jockey, diskette, diskless, diskman, Disney, Disneyland, dispatch, dispel, dispenser, displacement, display, disposer, disrupt, dissolve, distance, distortion, distribution, distributor, disturb, divertimento, divided skirt, divider, divot, French kiss). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | ディスパッチャー , ディスパッチャ . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 배차계. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | ispatcherday mala para documentos oficiais, expedidor de comboios, controlador de tráfego, carregador (baggage man, boot, carrier, charger, conveyer, door's man, drayman, feeder, haircutter, heaver, loading, lumper, porter, shipper, trencherman). (various references) диспетчер (despatcher, expediter, supervisor, traffic controller, traffic manager). (various references) dispečer, otpravnik (agent), ekspeditor. (various references) distribuidor (dispenser, distributary, distributor, stockist), despachador (marshal, marshaler, marshaller), transportista (carrier, hauler, haulier, shipper), pasador (barrette, bobby pin, brooch, hasp, intransigent, marlinespike, slide, smuggler, vagabond, vagrant), controlador de trenes, agente encargado de la regulación del tráfico (traffic controller). (various references) avsändare (consigner, consignor, poster, sender). (various references) sevk memuru, hareket memuru, üretim plânlama şefi. (various references) dispetзer (r). (various references) відправник (originator, sender), експедитор (forwarder, sender), диспетчер (expediter, operator). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "dispatcher": dispatchers. (additional references) | |
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"Dispatcher" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: dispactcher, dispatche, Edithatcher. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "dispatcher" (pronounced di'spa"kher or di"spa'kher) |
| 3 | -a" kh er | catcher, Hatcher, snatcher, stature, Thatcher. |
| 3 | -a' kh er | flycatcher, gnatcatcher. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-d-e-h-i-p-r-s-t" | |
-1 letter: cadetship, chapiters, practised, therapsid, tracheids. | |
-2 letters: acridest, adscript, aspheric, chapiter, chapters, chariest, crispate, despatch, dispatch, ditchers, hardiest, hepatics, parchesi, paretics, pastiche, patchers, patchier, peracids, phreatic, picrated, picrates, pistache, pitchers, pitheads, practise, predicts, rachides, raphides, rapidest, scarphed, scripted, seraphic, spicated, starched, theriacs, tracheid, traipsed, triphase. | |
-3 letters: achiest, airshed, airthed, aitches, aphetic, aphides, aridest, aseptic. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-d-e-h-i-p-r-s-t" | |
+1 letter: dispatchers. | |
+2 letters: diaphoretics, orthopaedics. | |
+3 letters: cardiopathies. | |
+4 letters: hyperacidities. | |
+5 letters: cyproheptadines, dermatoglyphics. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)44 69 73 70 61 74 63 68 65 72 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-.. .. ... .--. .- - -.-. .... . .-. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000100 01101001 01110011 01110000 01100001 01110100 01100011 01101000 01100101 01110010 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)D i s p a t c h e r |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0044 0069 0073 0070 0061 0074 0063 0068 0065 0072 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)38758582678669747184 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Quotations: Speeches 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Orthography 18. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
