Air Traffic Control Services Research Articles

A brief explanation of the air traffic controller professional activity

According to the International Labor Association (ILO), specialized agency of the United Nations, the occupation known as Air Traffic Controller is classified as Major Group 3 (Technicians and Associate Professions), Sub-Major Group 31 (Physical Science and Engineering Associate Professionals), Minor Group 314 (Ship and Aircraft Controllers and Technicians) and Unit Group 3144 (Air Traffic Controllers).(1) The Brazilian Air Traffic Control (ATC) Service is provided mainly by military staff, though few civilians work in this activity. As specialty inside the Brazilian Air Force, the rules that workers are submitted to may or may not follow those recommendations by the ILO associated with those issued by the World Health Organization (WHO). Nevertheless, as ATC is essentially an interaction of cognitive task, and considering it is also high-risk system similar to Nuclear Power Plants, the need that workers perform at their highest potential is imperative. Before being accepted on the ATC ab initio course, prospective candidates have to have the psychological requirements of the profession and pass through intensive psychotechnical tests and group dynamics exercises.(2) ATC workers must cope with some abnormal conditions of stress though it is expected that the work environment is organized in such way as to distribute the workload in order to mitigate its negative impact. These conditions in general are commonly related to the high number of the aircraft under the jurisdiction of air traffic controllers however monotony is also seen as cause of worker stress. Other factors that contribute to the stressful workload of the Brazilian ATC is the complexity of the sectors that controller's work with, unexpected traffic conflicts, the necessity to deviate from English phraseology to solve problems, time pressure, limitations and reliability of the equipment, and sometimes shift schedule that does not coincide with the relationship between peak traffic and the worker's circadian rhythm. According to Vismari, the time spent by an air traffic controller to detect conflict in his/her jurisdiction, to effectuate an adequate solution and to communicate the instruction to the aircraft crew is 4.95 seconds on average.(3) Thus, the air traffic controller works as part of team in complex sociotechnical and high-risk systems where most of the common place concepts known in many other professional activities cannot be applied in the same way. Working intensively in cognitive activity, air traffic controllers should ensure that their conditions best fit this very well known Latin quotation: Mens sana in corpore sano, which means a healthy mind in healthy body. After all, the air traffic controller is the last link, ready to consistently activate the system, looking for the best timely solution when technology fails. Creativity is the air traffic controller's differential when compared with technology. This scientific comment gave us the opportunity to present several nuances of an activity little described in medicine. The article by Ribas et al.(4) demonstrates an aspect peculiar to air traffic controllers.

Going stealthy with composites

Plans for wind farms are often opposed by defence organisations and air traffic control services on the grounds that they interfere with radar, making it difficult to track aircraft. Warships and ‘stealth’ aircraft also need to be ‘invisible’ to radar. George Marsh looks at the use of composites in radar absorbing materials and structures.

A study on how to improve communication effectiveness of air traffic controllers

As the objective of air traffic control (ATC) services is to achieve flight safety and efficient aircraft operations, the role of air traffic controllers is vital in the aviation system as a result. In this paper, the controller’s interactions were explored in terms of communications. The study was conducted through survey on the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) ATC controllers to identify any discrepancies in their viewpoints on the role of communication in their profession. In order to diminish differing points of view and ensure effective communication, the experienced controllers should commit to creating the desired work environment and every controller must keep in mind that mutual trust is a vital part of a successful organization. Instructions in accordance with the regulations, improvements in job satisfaction and self esteem, communication training, and individual endeavors fostering effective communication are all measures which will go a long way toward improving effective communications between the ATC specialists.

Role of Support Activities for Transportation in the Economy of Philadelphia & Delaware Counties

The Penn State Workforce Education and Development Initiative conducted an analysis of the economic impact of support activities for transportation in Philadelphia and Delaware counties in Pennsylvania. The analysis was designed to help understand the impact of the 385 person layoff at DAL Global Services in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, effective March 15, 2010.The Philadelphia branch of DAL Global Services is a staffing agency whose temporary, contract workers a variety of airline support activities such as ramp handling and cabin cleaning at the Philadelphia International Airport. DAL Global Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines, Inc., has branches in over 50 U.S. locations and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The Philadelphia Business Journal reported that the company cited a loss of contracts for services provided to US Airways and United Airlines as the reason for the layoff.Services provided by DAL Global Services are classified in North American Industrial Classification System code 488--support activities for transportation. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, establishments in this industry provide services which support transportation. These services may be provided to transportation carrier establishments or to the general public. This subsector includes a wide array of establishments, including air traffic control services, marine cargo handling, and motor vehicle towing. During 2007, 611,000 U.S. workers were employed in 38,566 establishments offering support activities for transportation with a payroll of $6.2 billion.An Economic and Workforce Brief quantifies the role of every 100 workers employed in an industry in generating jobs, compensation, and property taxes. A Brief explains the potential impact of an industry by analyzing patterns of transactions among industries and purchases of consumers to document the contribution of a regional industry.An analysis behind a Brief targets an industry (a group of establishments providing similar products or services), not an individual firm or single establishment. As a result, the economic and workforce impacts calculated represent an average, and the Brief does not forecast the specific impact of a particular establishment.

Challenges for the Communication Environment and Communication Concept for Remote Airport Traffic Control Centres

In cooperation with experts of the German air traffic control service provider Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH, researchers of the chair of cognitive psychology and cognitive ergonomics at Berlin Institute of Technology are currently working on the development of a communication environment and a communication concept for the simultaneous remote control of several regional airports during times of marginal traffic. One of their main research questions deals with the identification of factors contributing to the preservation of the required safety level for the new communication environment. For example, it is investigated how the spatial arrangement of different communication media influences the accuracy and celerity of mapping acoustic signals to different airports. The paper presents a summary of the ongoing research project, including a presentation of selected results obtained during an analysis of today's tower communication. In addition, an overview of relevant theoretical aspects from the area of cognitive psychology for a first empirical study is given.

Apportioned ATC Safety Criteria Based on Accident Rates

Changes to safety critical operations need to be assessed and judged as acceptably safe before operational introduction. In Air Traffic Management (ATM), this good practice has been cast into the EUROCONTROL Safety Regulatory Requirement on Risk Assessment and Mitigation (ESARR 4), and the European Commission Regulation No. 2096/2005 laying down common requirements for the provision of air navigation services. A severe complication in applying these regulations is that, whereas one wishes to limit safety assessments to the parts of the operation that might be affected by the change, no criteria for acceptable safety of such parts are given. In other words, one needs to breakdown overall safety criteria and apportion the associated overall risk budget in order to be able to limit safety assessments. This paper presents such an apportionment. More specifically, an overall frequency per flight is derived for so-called Air Traffic Control-related accidents, which essentially correspond to the collisions Air Traffic Control (ATC) is to prevent and which can be objectively determined from accident data. The resulting overall ATC-related risk is apportioned over so-called ATC sub-products, which are to be interpreted as parts of flights forming a logical element within an ATC service or unit, such as ‘Taxiing’, ‘Line up’ and ‘Take-off’. The distribution of risk over the ATC sub-products is differentiated according to statistical accident and flight data. LVNL is currently in the process of gathering and categorisation of its incident data according to the developed ATC sub-products, to verify the derived apportionment based on accident data.It is obvious that very different circumstances may apply for the flights associated with a particular ATC sub-product: whereas one aircraft taxis a short route in good weather and quiet traffic circumstances, another aircraft taxies a long way, in poor weather and busy circumstances. Generally, the various circumstances are clustered into ‘states’ of the ATM system, which are characterized by weather, traffic condition and runway combination. For each ATC sub-product a risk acceptability interval around the average risk value is applied to allow for the different states in which the ATM system can exist.The ATC safety criteria are presented together with examples giving insight into their application, and it is indicated how expected traffic growth is handled.

Small Aircraft Transportation System, Higher Volume Operations Concept and Research Summary

The ability to conduct concurrent, multiple aircraft operations in poor weather at virtually any airport offers an important opportunity for a significant increase in the rate of flight operations, a major improvement in passenger convenience, and the potential to foster growth of operations at small airports. The Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS), Higher Volume Operations (HVO) concept is designed to increase capacity at the 3400 nonradar, non-towered airports in the United States where operations are currently restricted to “one-in/one-out” procedural separation during low visibility or ceilings. The concept’s key feature is that pilots maintain their own separation from other aircraft using air-to-air datalink and on-board software within the Self-Controlled Area (SCA), an area of flight operations established during poor visibility and low ceilings around an airport without Air Traffic Control (ATC) services. While pilots self-separate within the SCA, an Airport Management Module (AMM) located at the airport assigns arriving pilots their sequence based on aircraft performance, position, winds, missed approach requirements, and ATC intent. The HVO design uses distributed decision-making, safe procedures, attempts to minimize pilot and controller workload, and integrates with today’s ATC environment. This paper summarizes the HVO concept and procedures, presents a summary of the research conducted and results, and outlines areas where future HVO research is required.

U.S. Air Force in European Airspace: Planning Future CNS/ATM Capabilities

The U.S. Air Force (USAF) relies on Communication Navigation Surveillance / Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) equipment for capabilities that allow its aircraft to use civil airspace and interact with air traffic control services. The resulting ability to interoperate with air traffic control systems around the world is critical to support the USAF’s global, multifaceted mission, but entails large expenditures in equipment acquisition, integration, and training. It is important to understand the trade-offs that the USAF must make in assessing the value of specific CNS/ATM capabilities. In this paper, we describe a model-driven analysis to assess operational impacts related to CNS/ATM capability. The analysis accounts for planned USAF CNS/ATM capabilities by aircraft type vis-à-vis airspace regulations and operational restrictions that are expected to be encountered in specific geographic regions. Two layers of interactions are investigated: first, within the USAF enterprise: between the Combat Air Forces (CAF) assets and the Mobility Air Forces (MAF) assets and, second, between the USAF and civilian ATM. The content is unclassified.The model-based analysis framework can support enterprise decision processes. It provides a means for addressing specific issues as the CNS/ATM roadmap evolves. This framework can extend current models for the area of operations by providing added realism for what is now assumed to be unhindered aircraft availability.

Air Traffic Control

Determining how the controller (or air navigation service provider) of the future will function in tomorrow's Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) will require an understanding of the existing literature. In this chapter, after an analysis of the controller's job, we focus on technology, which is an important factor in air traffic control (ATC) today and will become increasingly so in NextGen. We then turn to workload and the extent to which it can be predicted. From human-technology interaction and workload, we move to the multiple facets of cognition thought to underlie these and other aspects of the controller's job. Beyond individual cognition, we review collaboration among controllers and discuss both synchronous cooperation and the cooperative shift change. As we move up the system, we look at error, risk, and safety. Finally, we consider the work on controller selection, covering both “select-in” (KSAOs) and “select-out” (e.g., medical and suitability) factors. For NextGen to be successful, human factors researchers must determine from today's research how the human operator can best function to provide ATC services in the future.

Peculiarities of heart rate variability in personnel air-traffic control service

Peculiarities of heart rate variability in personnel air-traffic control service

Federal aviation administration and ada

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) depends upon large, complex and highly available software systems to manage the vast commercial and civil aviation network and to carry out the agency's mission of ensuring high capacity, efficient and extremely safe air travel for the flying public. The FAA's Tower domain provides air traffic control services in the airport environment. There are more than 500 FAA managed Towers. The Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) domain provides air traffic control services in the terminal environment where aircraft are climbing or descending. There are 197 TRACONs. The En Route domain provides air traffic control services typically above 10,000 feet between departure and arrival domains where aircraft achieve their optimal cruise altitude. There are only 21 En Route centers, so each must provide coverage to very large areas. Ada has become a strategic technology in developing and sustaining systems that require high availability and high reliability. The FAA Air Traffic Organization's (ATO) major recent initiative, the En-Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) program goes a long way to reintegrating many disparate system components into a modern composite architecture. This program leverages and significantly expands upon previous Ada based systems, so the FAA has a vital interest in Ada language technology now and for the foreseeable future. Mr. O'Leary will present a federal customer's perspective on systems development and quality, with emphasis on higher reliability, security, and safety. Ada is exceptionally well positioned to support these characteristics, and that is why many current large FAA ATC systems are largely or significantly Ada based. He will touch on past Ada based systems that FAA fielded, the current major ERAM effort, and also where FAA is going in the future with the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). He will give some insights on what the language and development technologies can contribute towards facilitating the vision of our future. FAA accepts use of DO-278 as a means of assuring systems integrity for Communications, Navigation, Surveillance, and Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) software. Ada has also performed well in DO-278.

Mission Effectiveness and European Airspace: U.S. Air Force CNS/ATM Planning for Future Years

The U.S. Air Force (USAF) uses the term Communication Navigation Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) for capabilities that allow its aircraft to use civil airspace and air traffic control services. The resulting ability to interoperate with air traffic control systems around the world supports the USAF's global, multi-faceted mission, but entails great expense in on-board equipage and training. It is important to understand the trade-offs that the USAF must make in assessing the value of specific CNS/ATM capabilities. In this paper, we describe a model-driven analysis to assess mission effectiveness. The analysis is accomplished via a five-step process involving military route generation, simulation of the civilian airspace activity, simulation of delay events for military flights, and evaluation of several figures of merit. The software modules used for these activities were a combination of existing packages and some newly-developed programs. The analysis accounts for planned USAF CNS/ATM capabilities by aircraft type, as well as any airspace and operational restrictions that might be encountered in specific geographic regions when the aircraft does not have the required capabilities. Two layers of interactions are investigated: first, within the USAF enterprise, specifically, between the fighter and tankers assets and, second, between the USAF and civilian ATM.

Critical Incident Stress Management in Air Traffic Control and Its Benefits

In 2004, we reported about a pilot study [Vogt et al., 2004] investigating the implementation of the Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) Program with the German Air Traffic Control Services (Deutsche Flugsicherung, DFS) under cost-benefit-considerations. The current paper describes how CISM is used in ATC and what the specific requirements in this application area are. The main DFS CISM evaluation study is then reported based upon 309 questionnaires from air traffic controllers (ATCOs), 43 questionnaires from CISM Peers, 39 interviews with operations room supervisors, and 11 interviews with top managers. The collected data confirm the results of the pilot study in that the program’s estimated fiscal benefits had exceeded the program costs several times. Moreover, the study gave information about the causal chains of critical incidents (CI) impairing certain important ATCO abilities, on-the-job behaviors, and work outputs, which in turn reduce the capacity of the individual ATCO and the whole system. The immediate application of CISM in combination with time off for the rest of the work day resulted in the lowest after-effects of the CI at work.

Algorithmic System for Identifying Bird Radio-Echo and Plotting Radar Ornithological Charts

Algorithmic System for Identifying Bird Radio-Echo and Plotting Radar Ornithological Charts The territory of Israel is a route for major bird migration from Europe and certain areas in Asia and Africa and back. During the period of intensive migration, the average density of birds may reach over 500 birds per a square kilometre of the air. These figures, alongside with the fact the air over the country is saturated with aircraft, makes it an urgent task to find solutions for prevention of disasters caused by aircraft-bird collisions. In the present paper, a new algorithm is proposed aimed at identifying bird radar echoes against the background of other reflectors. The implementation of the algorithm has made it possible to improve the computerised radar system for bird monitoring developed earlier in Israel on the basis of MRL-5 meteorological radar station. The time needed for echo selection has been significantly reduced, while the trustworthiness of the ornithological data provided by the algorithm has increased. The new algorithm utilizes several echo properties that have been added to the algorithm previously developed by the authors, the most important of them being the pattern of echo movement. These properties in combination with a set of techniques used for their identification enabled to isolate the echo from moving birds against the background of other objects (ground clutter, clouds, atmospheric inhomogeneities, aircraft, etc.) at the accuracy level sufficient for operational purposes. The information on echo movement was used for plotting flight vectors (velocity and direction) of individual birds and bird groups. On the basis of movement pattern, four types of movement were distinguished: straightforward at non-uniform velocity; straightforward at uniform velocity; significant deviation from a straight line, non-uniform velocity and chaotic undirected shifts. The system enables on-line plotting of operational ornithological charts every 15-30 min, including charts that combine meteorological and bird monitoring data, to be provided to air traffic control services. This makes the proposed radar ornithological system an efficient means of maintaining air traffic safety in complicated meteorological and ornithological conditions.

Reforming air traffic control: an assessment from the American perspective

This paper examines institutional and economic reform of the ways in which air traffic control (ATC) services are provided in the US. It also contrasts the European and US ATC systems in terms of size, scope, cost and organizational form. The paper suggests that many of the congestion and delay problems experienced in the US result from the inefficient provision and use of air traffic capacity in the airport area, and these conditions are likely to continue or worsen if economic principles are not used to organize and provide ATC services. The paper notes that, while Europe has advanced more rapidly in the organizational and economic reform of providing ATC services, other problems remain. Because most large European airports have slot controls to limit demand in the airport area, its ATC congestion is more pronounced in the en route environment.

Air traffic control for europe-a long hard road

This paper examines institutional and economic reform of the ways in which air traffic control (ATC) services are provided in the US. It also contrasts the European and US ATC systems in terms of size, scope, cost and organizational form. The paper suggests that many of the congestion and delay problems experienced in the US result from the inefficient provision and use of air traffic capacity in the airport area, and these conditions are likely to continue or worsen if economic principles are not used to organize and provide ATC services. The paper notes that, while Europe has advanced more rapidly in the organizational and economic reform of providing ATC services, other problems remain. Because most large European airports have slot controls to limit demand in the airport area, its ATC congestion is more pronounced in the en route environment.

Common errors of drug administration in infants: causes and avoidance.

Drug administration errors are common in infants. Although the infant population has a high exposure to drugs, there are few data concerning pharmacokinetics or pharmacodynamics, or the influence of paediatric diseases on these processes. Children remain therapeutic orphans. Formulations are often suitable only for adults; in addition, the lack of maturation of drug elimination processes, alteration of body composition and influence of size render the calculation of drug doses complex in infants. The commonest drug administration error in infants is one of dose, and the commonest hospital site for this error is the intensive care unit. Drug errors are a consequence of system error, and preventive strategies are possible through system analysis. The goal of a zero drug error rate should be aggressively sought, with systems in place that aim to eliminate the effects of inevitable human error. This involves review of the entire system from drug manufacture to drug administration. The nuclear industry, telecommunications and air traffic control services all practise error reduction policies with zero error as a clear goal, not by finding fault in the individual, but by identifying faults in the system and building into that system mechanisms for picking up faults before they occur. Such policies could be adapted to medicine using interventions both specific (the production of formulations which are for children only and clearly labelled, regular audit by pharmacists, legible prescriptions, standardised dose tables) and general (paediatric drug trials, education programmes, nonpunitive error reporting) to reduce the number of errors made in giving medication to infants.

Fault-tolerance in air traffic control systems

The distributed real-time system services developed by Lockheed Martin's Air Traffic Management group serve the infrastructure for a number of air traffic control systems. Either completed development or under development are the US Federal Aviation Administration's Display System Replacement (DSR) system, the UK Civil Aviation Authority's New Enroute Center (NERC) system, and the Republic of China's Air Traffic Control Automated System (ATCAS). These systems are intended to replace present en route systems over the next decade. High availability of air traffic control services is an essential requirement of these systems. This article discusses the general approach to fault-tolerance adopted in this infrastructure, by reviewing some of the questions which were asked during the system design, various alternative solutions considered, and the reasons for the design choices made. The aspects of this infrastructure chosen for the individual ATC systems mentioned above, along with the status of those systems, are presented in the Section 11 of the article.

A new underground air traffic control centre for Oslo

The Civil Aviation Administration of Norway (NCAA) is currently undertaking a comprehensive programme for the modernization and enhancement of air traffic control services in southeast Norway. The most important element within this programme is the establishment of a new Air Traffic Control Centre (ATCC) for Oslo that will provide both area and approach control services within the area. A national air traffic control school (the ATS Academy), which will provide both basic and advanced training for air traffic controllers, will be established in conjunction with the ATCC. The facility will also provide for maintenance, development and testing of application software and system enhancements. The ATCC is sited underground, and administration and training facilities are in buildings outside, connected to the air traffic control centre by a tunnel. The paper describes the major operation systems and sub-systems that will support the ATCC activities.

Safety Topics

JUST as no new commercial aircraft is allowed to carry fare‐paying passenger on its first flight, no significant change to air traffic control (ATC) services is approved for operation until it has undergone a proper programme of development and test. The Air Traffic Control Evaluation Unit (ATCEU) is located at Bournemouth International Airport and is part of the National Air Traffic Services (NATS). Ever since 1947 it has been actively engaged in helping to ensure that, when new ATC equipments, procedures and systems are introduced to operational service, they will meet the rigorous requirements of a safety‐conscious aviation industry.