Supervising Multiple Remote Tower Operations: How to Develop and Test a New Work Position in the ATC Domain?

Active Supervision in a Remote Tower Center: Rethinking of a New Position in the ATC Domain

“…The initial concept for the Remote Tower Center (RTC) supervisor (SUP) is still research in progress [7]. For the purpose of this paper, the supervisor is defined as a coordinator and support position for all Multiple Remote Tower Modules (MRTM) in the center.…”

“…weather information and traffic distribution for each airport and radio communication to each ATCO. Figure 1 Set-up for Remote Tower Center Supervisor, from [7] In accordance to the EUROCONTROL/FAA [8] white paper for human performance, the majority of operational procedures can be measured by use cases. Therefore, three design workshops with the focus on general requirements for the remote center supervisor workplace, main use cases and additional use cases were conducted.…”

“…Therefore, three design workshops with the focus on general requirements for the remote center supervisor workplace, main use cases and additional use cases were conducted. Friedrich, Timmermann and Jakobi [7] used a user-centered design approach to develop the operational procedures and identified use cases that are relevant for the SUP. Following the MRTO concept, these use cases represent tasks that are expected from the SUP to handle multiple times throughout a shift.…”

“…Following the MRTO concept, these use cases represent tasks that are expected from the SUP to handle multiple times throughout a shift. For this paper, we focus on the following nine use cases (Table 1), selected from [7]. Each use case requires a mix of information, from the airports and the MRTM directly, that need to be processed by the SUP and transferred into a planning for the near future.…”

“…Based on the existing concept of multiple remote tower operations and the introduction literature to the workplace SUP [7], the following research questions (RQ) are proposed. RQ1: How realistic is this SUP workplace in terms of operational feasibility for MRTO?…”