Abstract
The innovative concept of digital tower provides a new solution for reducing the construction and operation costs of airports with adverse natural environments, poor intervisibility conditions, or sparse traffic. However, it leads to changes in the situational awareness of air traffic controllers and to challenges in safety performance. To research the safety performance of apron controllers at a large-scale airport applying a digital tower, a field study was conducted at Baiyun International Airport in Guangzhou, China. In this study, we established a comprehensive index system from the perspective of situational awareness, which provided measurements on the areas of interests, gaze and physiological features, and vigilance of controllers. Three modules were compared: a physical tower module, a digital tower module with a large panoramic screen, and a digital tower module with a small panoramic screen. The differences in the safety performances of apron controllers are discussed in two aspects: adaptability and reliability. The results indicated that the apron controllers at the three modules performed different cognition patterns, but similar cognition effort was paid toward maintaining performance. Furthermore, the significant vigilance decrement of controllers exists between after-duty and before-duty, but with no significant difference among the three modules. In conclusion, apron controllers at a large-scale airport could obtain effective safety performances based on a digital tower that were no less than those from a physical tower.
Highlights
Digital tower, referred to as remote tower, is defined as a geographically independent facility from which aerodrome air traffic service (ATS) is provided principally through indirect observation of the aerodrome and its vicinity, by means of a visual surveillance system [1]
Except for voice communication system (VCS), many information systems are deployed for independent apron control, such as surface movement guidance and control systems (SMGCS), visual surveillance system, electronic flight strips (EFS), synthetic information display (SID), etc
The physical tower module for apron control at Baiyun Airport is mainly equipped with SMGCS, EFS, VCS, and SID
Summary
Referred to as remote tower, is defined as a geographically independent facility from which aerodrome air traffic service (ATS) is provided principally through indirect observation of the aerodrome and its vicinity, by means of a visual surveillance system [1]. Much research and many tasks have been carried out to assess human performance in multiple modes (a digital tower module remotely providing ATS for two or more aerodromes at a time) at low-density airports. Apron Controllers at a large-scale airport are required to perform more complex tasks including taxi route planning, conflict resolution, etc. They need to continuously pay attention, so they experience higher pressures to provide ATS to more aircraft (dozens per hour). We establish an index system on controllers’ situational awareness for data acquisition and conducted a field study on the safety performances of apron controllers based on a digital tower at a largescale airport in two aspects: adaptability and reliability. Compared with laboratorial or simulator studies, field studies take advantage of the actual working states and pressures of controllers [21]
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