Degraded States of Engagement in Air Traffic Control

Yannick Migliorini,Jean-Paul Imbert,Frédéric Dehais,Alex Lafont,Raphaëlle N Roy

doi:10.3390/safety8010019

Abstract

Safety studies have identified attention as a recurring cause of incidents and accidents in air traffic control. However, little is known of the precise attentional states that lead to degraded ATC performance. Therefore, we surveyed 150 French en route air traffic controllers on the causes of and impacts on perceived cooperation, safety, and performance of seven degraded attentional states from the literature: task-related and task-unrelated mind wandering, mental overload, inattentional deafness and blindness, attentional entropy, and perseveration. Our findings indicated that task-related and task-unrelated mind wandering were the most prevalent but had the least impact on perceived safety. Conversely, inattentional blindness and attentional entropy were less reported but were considered a significant safety concern, while inattentional deafness affected cooperation. Most states were experienced in workload levels consistent with the literature. However, no other factor such as shift work was identified as a cause of these states. Overall, these findings suggest that “attention” is not a specific enough subject for ATC, as attentional issues can occur in various conditions and have different impacts. As far as safety is concerned, inattentional blindness should be the prime target for further research. Neuroergonomics in particular could help develop dynamic countermeasures to mitigate its impact.

Highlights

First and foremost, every single certified air traffic controller reported having experienced at least one of these states at least once in their career, and all seven states were experienced to some degree
Degraded attentional states have been studied in experiments and air traffic control (ATC) simulations, but little is known about their actual prevalence and impact on everyday operations
This study aimed at providing such operational data, as identifying which states have significant prevalence and repercussions could lead to targeted countermeasures to help air traffic controllers cope with the variability of their working conditions while maintaining a high level of performance

Summary

Introduction

Eleven million commercial aircraft flew in Europe in 2019 [1]. “En route” air traffic controllers (ATCOs) play a crucial role in supervising and ensuring an efficient flow of these aircraft while maintaining adequate separation to prevent collisions [3]. ATCOs generally work in pairs and mainly use radar screens in order to provide safe and efficient trajectories for all aircraft. A variety of tools have been implemented over the years in order to help them perform this task. This results in a multitude of information being displayed in various locations using several colors and symbolic codes, making air traffic control demanding in terms of attention

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