Controller Support Tools for Schedule-Based Terminal-Area Operations

Abstract

A human-in-the-loop simulation was conducted to evaluate advanced controller support tools and display enhancements in terminal airspace. Terminal-area air traffic controllers managed aircraft arriving on optimized profile descents along Area Navigation routes following runway arrival schedules using only speed clearances in the presence of forecast wind errors and other disturbances. Three successively more advanced toolsets and three wind forecast errors comprised the experimental conditions. The results demonstrated that arrival schedule timelines (least advanced), timelines plus ‘slot marker’ circles, and timelines/slot markers plus speed advisories (most advanced) all enabled controllers to manage arrivals according to the runway schedules and maintain safe separation while keeping aircraft on their assigned routes. Participants preferred the timeline-plus-slot-marker toolset, in which the slot marker circles provided a spatial target useful for achieving schedule compliance. Speed advisories were the least usable. The paper discusses possible reasons behind this and suggests potential