(in German)

In Germany, already more than half of the employees occasionally work outside the office, with many commuters and business travelers using the time on long-distance trains for mobile work. Another popular new form of work is activity-based office concepts. These forms of work place special demands on work compared to the office. The aim of the present work was to investigate the execution of various work tasks in long-distance trains and in the quiet work zones of activity-based office concepts compared to the individual office, especially with regard to physical and psychological stresses and strains caused by mobile work and the performance achieved. For mobile routine knowledge work on long-distance trains, a higher mental strain and a significantly lower performance compared to the individual office were found. In the activitybased office concept, a lower strain and better performance were shown compared to the individual office. The perceived strain during creative knowledge work on the train was worse in the areas of physical strain, frustration, and satisfaction with the execution of the task than in the individual office. Compared to the activity-based office concept, a higher time strain in the individual office was shown during creative knowledge work. The performance during creative knowledge work did not differ significantly in the test conditions of long-distance train and individual office. The performance during creative knowledge work in the activity-based office concept was better both compared to the long-distance train and compared to the individual office. The stress and performance values show a clear advantage of both office work conditions compared to the mobile workplace train, which is not primarily designed for work. The results in the activity-based office concept confirm that, with appropriate implementation, they can enable well-designed screen work. A specially developed design catalog for mobile knowledge work on long-distance trains recommends measures for optimizing the load for employees.

Please download the complete report "Cognitive Ergonomics of Mobile Knowledge Work in Public Transport and Activity-Based Office Environments" (in German only).