The contribution is a successful approach to complex decision-making in multi-actor systems by identification of multiple game concepts over time, with periodic feedback into the designing system, and not the actual decision-making itself. The design of a new safety system ERTMS for the Dutch railway sector is the context in which the study was performed. The study analyses how the game concept characterization was used, i.e., which strategies were defined during the game theory interventions, and what the consequences of these strategies were for the design of the decision-making process. In contrast to a game theoretical analysis, which results in optimal outcomes, the characterization is fed back to the designers of the decision-making process during the course of the process. Recognizing the impossibility of having an optimal system design in such complex systems, this article explores how a game theoretical characterization of a decision-making process assists in the organization and design of the process itself. This complexity has consequences for the way of designing such systems and, in particular, for the decision-making process.
Engineering systems are complex, amongst others due to the interdependencies between actor and technical aspects.
