A post by Funnelfan on Trainorders discussed how bad dispatching can add significant costs to a railroad's bottom line. I believe he is in train service so his knowledge of actual costs may be limited. But assuming there is truth in his comment I ask, why aren't all the dispatcher's duties put into a computer algorithm to remove the poor decision making by dispatchers? Would things be better or worse if the job was semi-automated with supervisory control? Or do railroads already have such tools in place?