Airspace Complexity Measurement: An Air Traffic Control Simulation Analysis

Abstract

This paper describes results of a dynamic density (DD) human-in-the-loop simulation and DD model development activity that was designed to examine the complexity measures. DD measures that were presented at the US/Europe ATM 2003 Seminar were used in the analysis. This study differed from the previous one in three aspects: first, the simulation included Reduced Vertical Separation Minima procedures, second, the study focused on the Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center’s airspace where previous study results showed the weakest correlation, and third, the traffic was actively controlled during the simulation, whereas in the previous study, audio/video replays were shown. The results indicated that the DD metric performed better than aircraft count, which is the basis of the presently used complexity gauge, and that the new DD model performed better than the previous model for Cleveland Center.