Supporting Air Traffic Controllers During Sector Configuration Changes in Dynamic Air Space Configuration

Abstract

There is an increasing demand for a means of addressing growth in air traffic amount and complexity. One such means, dynamic airspace configuration (DAC) proposes moving from fixed, static airspace configurations to configurations that dynamically adapt to changes in traffic amount and patterns. Whiles several different DAC solutions have been proposed and evaluated, little is known about the acceptability of DAC approaches to their end users. The work reported in this paper focuses on Air Traffic Controllers' (ATCOs’) acceptance of DAC. To address this, we developed a prototype controller working position (CWP) that supports ATCOs in understanding changes in airspace configurations and their effect. We conducted a study with ATCOs controlling the Milan Air Traffic Control Centre using this CWP. To our knowledge, this is the first time DAC has been implemented in a CWP and tested with ATCOs. We also investigated how different user interface mechanisms aided ATCOs. Findings presented here may be useful for further development of DAC and other work-intensive systems.