Narrative:

I was taxiing the aircraft and our original gate was occupied. We were directed by ATC to hold short of the center roadway which I did. At that point I had both engines running and I decided to ask the first officer (first officer) to shut down the left engine due to the amount of time I thought we'd wait and because I expected us to park at [our original gate]. The left engine was shut down and shortly after we were informed by ramp that we were going to park at gate xx at the end of the concourse complex. I taxied the aircraft to that location. The parking crew were not quite ready and I stopped the aircraft. I advised the passengers that we were not on the gate and that they should remain seated with their seat belts fastened. The parking marshaller who was normally located at the nose was at a position toward the actual jet bridge and his guidance was difficult to determine. He waited until we were very close to the separation wall in front of the nose to give us a turn to the right. At that point; the nose wheel steering stopped working as I tried to turn. As I had only one engine; I had added some not insignificant thrust to try to move the aircraft. All of a sudden the aircraft was not moving in the turn and was not under control. I immediately and aggressively applied the brakes. I reset the northwest (nose wheel) steering with the arm switch and reapplied thrust. Once again; as we began to turn I had to aggressively apply braking. At that point the aircraft was not in a position to park and the ground marshaller got a tug and we communicated with him. They attached the tug; I disengaged the northwest steering and I asked if I needed to shut down the right engine. He said no. I also once again got on the PA and apologized for the aggressive braking again; explained that we were being towed into the gate and advised passengers to remain seated with their seat belts fastened. We were tugged back and forth to straighten the aircraft into position and we completed the remainder of the shut down. I was intent on meeting passengers at the door to apologize. I asked the first officer to call maintenance which I believe that she did because maintenance arrived on the aircraft. During the passenger de-boarding process one of the passengers needed a wheel chair. The outbound crew was also there and I greeted them at the gate counter briefly and then returned down the aircraft to address the passenger who was awaiting the wheelchair assistance. At this point; the outbound crew was walking down the jet bridge. My first officer was kind enough to have pulled out my overnight bag from the back of the cabin and maintenance was onboard the aircraft. I was collecting my kit bag equipment from my seat area and maintenance asked if I wrote it up. I did so quickly and got up out of the seat to get out of the way of both maintenance and the outbound crew.I was intent on calling the duty pilot away from passengers just to discuss the abrupt braking during taxi-in in case passengers complained. I had that conversation which was direct as to what happened. Throughout this event; it was my intent to call dispatch but events went rather quickly and before I knew it the outbound captain was briefing passengers about a brief delay. And I never called dispatch or maintenance through dispatch.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: CRJ200 Captain reported difficulty parking at the gate due to malfunctioning of nose wheel steering and improper marshalling.

Narrative: I was taxiing the aircraft and our original gate was occupied. We were directed by ATC to hold short of the center roadway which I did. At that point I had both engines running and I decided to ask the FO (First Officer) to shut down the left engine due to the amount of time I thought we'd wait and because I expected us to park at [our original gate]. The left engine was shut down and shortly after we were informed by ramp that we were going to park at Gate XX at the end of the concourse complex. I taxied the aircraft to that location. The parking crew were not quite ready and I stopped the aircraft. I advised the passengers that we were not on the gate and that they should remain seated with their seat belts fastened. The parking marshaller who was normally located at the nose was at a position toward the actual jet bridge and his guidance was difficult to determine. He waited until we were very close to the separation wall in front of the nose to give us a turn to the right. At that point; the nose wheel steering stopped working as I tried to turn. As I had only one engine; I had added some not insignificant thrust to try to move the aircraft. All of a sudden the aircraft was not moving in the turn and was not under control. I immediately and aggressively applied the brakes. I reset the NW (nose wheel) steering with the arm switch and reapplied thrust. Once again; as we began to turn I had to aggressively apply braking. At that point the aircraft was not in a position to park and the ground marshaller got a tug and we communicated with him. They attached the tug; I disengaged the NW steering and I asked if I needed to shut down the right engine. He said no. I also once again got on the PA and apologized for the aggressive braking again; explained that we were being towed into the gate and advised passengers to remain seated with their seat belts fastened. We were tugged back and forth to straighten the aircraft into position and we completed the remainder of the shut down. I was intent on meeting passengers at the door to apologize. I asked the FO to call Maintenance which I believe that she did because Maintenance arrived on the aircraft. During the passenger de-boarding process one of the passengers needed a wheel chair. The outbound crew was also there and I greeted them at the gate counter briefly and then returned down the aircraft to address the passenger who was awaiting the wheelchair assistance. At this point; the outbound crew was walking down the jet bridge. My FO was kind enough to have pulled out my overnight bag from the back of the cabin and Maintenance was onboard the aircraft. I was collecting my kit bag equipment from my seat area and Maintenance asked if I wrote it up. I did so quickly and got up out of the seat to get out of the way of both Maintenance and the outbound crew.I was intent on calling the duty pilot away from passengers just to discuss the abrupt braking during taxi-in in case passengers complained. I had that conversation which was direct as to what happened. Throughout this event; it was my intent to call Dispatch but events went rather quickly and before I knew it the outbound Captain was briefing passengers about a brief delay. And I never called Dispatch or Maintenance through Dispatch.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.