The Effect of Air Traffic Increase on Controller Workload

Abstract

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been increasing the National Airspace System (NAS) capacity to accommodate the predicted rapid growth of air traffic. One method to increase the capacity is reducing air traffic controller workload so that they can handle more air traffic. It is crucial to measure the impact of the increasing future air traffic on controller workload. Our experimental data show a linear relationship between the number of aircraft in the en route center sector and controllers' perceived workload. Based on the extensive range of aircraft count from 14 to 38 in the experiment, we can predict en route center controllers working as a team of Radar and Data controllers with the automation tools available in the our experiment could handle up to about 28 aircraft. This is 33% more than the 21 aircraft that en route center controllers typically handle in a busy sector. * Now with Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC).

The Relationship between Aircraft Count and Controller Workload in Different En Route Workstation Systems

“…In the one-sector configuration, the linear model predicted that controllers would control four more aircraft with the DSR when they used data communication than when they communicated verbally, which was consistent with Hah et al (2006) and Willems et al (2006). The model also predicted controllers would control three more aircraft with ERAM and seven more aircraft with FEWS.…”

“…This 34 aircraft count was higher than those reported by Hah et al (2006) and Willems et al (2006). The reason might be that in the current experiment, we instructed controllers to control traffic as long as they could.…”

“…Air traffic control researchers could explain about half of the workload variance with aircraft count (52% by Hah, Willems, and Phillips, 2006;53% by Hurst andRose, 1978, quoted by Eurocontrol in 1998;60% by Stein, 1985; 53% by Lee that was the average of R 2 s of his linear models of three controllers ' data, 2005). Lee modeled the relationship and argued that it was nonlinear based on the larger R 2 of the S model over the linear model.…”

Identifying objective criterion to determine a complicated task – A comparative study

“…7. Actually, several researchers have commonly pointed out that the performance of human operators (e.g., air traffic controllers or car drivers) decreased when they passed a certain point or region in terms of the amount of workload being imposed (De Waard, 2006;Hah et al, 2006;Lee, 2005;Lee et al, 2007;Paxion et al, 2013). This insight is very important for investigating the feasibility of the TACOM measure as a tool to objectively identify the level of a task complexity because a linear regression result depicted in Fig.…”

Benefits of Mid-Term Flexible Airspace Management in Presence of Weather

“…The selected threshold incorporated an increase in the number of aircraft an air traffic controller could handle due to an increased proportion of data communication capable aircraft in the traffic. 18,19 Initially, the threshold was set at 17, based on the average of high altitude sector Monitor Alert Parameter values from 364 sectors in the National Airspace System. 20,21 This value was then adjusted to 18 using a linear relationship from a MITRE study.…”