Narrative:

Chicago was landing one runway due to low ceilings coupled with a high threat taxi opportunity. We had a shared mental model to turn right to taxi to our ramp. Upon touchdown we heard; 'traffic behind no factor; roll to tango 9 and stay with me.' all this occurred during transfer of aircraft control and since we were unfamiliar a discussion of; 'here is tango 7; this will be a left turn to tango 9.' my first officer read back; 'tango nine and stay with you.' I vacated the runway at T9; and my expectation or bias was to then get a taxi clearance once he saw us on T9. We pulled off on a small high speed to ensure we were off the runway but not on tango since we felt we didn't have clearance to taxi on tango yet. The controller then yelled and said; 'get off the runway!' we felt we were off the runway; but I pulled a little more forward and he then told an aircraft to go around. He apologized to them and said we should be on tango. He never stated a direction of turn or any clearance limit; which led to our confusion. I questioned my first officer to where we were going on tango. I was taxing very slow when he finally gave us; taxi tango; cross 10/28; continue south on tango to ramp. We continued to question ourselves on missing something; stating we should have had a clearance limit. Our unfamiliarity with chicago and ATC trying to do the job of ground and tower; and his workload allowed confusion and miscommunication to creep in. If he had wanted us on tango; then T9; south on tango to... Stay with him would have cleared our confusion. Or; when we read back T9 only he could have elaborated or corrected us. For those into chicago often; they would have known. Our other airports usually say vacate this spot then contact ground and they tell you were to go. Chicago is such a busy airport we did not want to assume a taxi clearance and therefore the confusion.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A widebody Captain reports confusion after being instructed by Tower to clear Runway 14R at ORD on Taxiway T9. The reporter is reluctant to taxi on Tango without clearance causing the Tower to send the next aircraft around.

Narrative: Chicago was landing one runway due to low ceilings coupled with a high threat taxi opportunity. We had a shared mental model to turn right to taxi to our ramp. Upon touchdown we heard; 'traffic behind no factor; roll to Tango 9 and stay with me.' All this occurred during transfer of aircraft control and since we were unfamiliar a discussion of; 'here is tango 7; this will be a left turn to tango 9.' My First Officer read back; 'tango nine and stay with you.' I vacated the runway at T9; and my expectation or bias was to then get a taxi clearance once he saw us on T9. We pulled off on a small high speed to ensure we were off the runway but not on tango since we felt we didn't have clearance to taxi on tango yet. The Controller then yelled and said; 'get off the runway!' We felt we were off the runway; but I pulled a little more forward and he then told an aircraft to go around. He apologized to them and said we should be on tango. He never stated a direction of turn or any clearance limit; which led to our confusion. I questioned my First Officer to where we were going on tango. I was taxing very slow when he finally gave us; taxi tango; cross 10/28; continue south on tango to ramp. We continued to question ourselves on missing something; stating we should have had a clearance limit. Our unfamiliarity with Chicago and ATC trying to do the job of Ground and Tower; and his workload allowed confusion and miscommunication to creep in. If he had wanted us on tango; then T9; south on tango to... Stay with him would have cleared our confusion. Or; when we read back T9 only he could have elaborated or corrected us. For those into Chicago often; they would have known. Our other airports usually say vacate this spot then contact ground and they tell you were to go. Chicago is such a busy airport we did not want to assume a taxi clearance and therefore the confusion.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.