Tower Controllers' Response Behavior to Runway Safety Alerts

Abstract

As decision support tools to improve runway safety are introduced into Airport Traffic Control Towers, it is critical to understand their impact on controller performance. A Tower Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) simulation was conducted to evaluate the behavior of Local controllers in the presence of tower-based runway safety alerts. The results of this study suggest controllers like to gather as much information about the situation, within a reasonable amount of time (usually less than 5 seconds), before they initiate the action of issuing instructions to the aircraft involved in the emergency.