We describe a framework for developing and evaluating a model of the perceived complexity of an air traffic situation, with specific regard to the traffic characteristics that impact the cognitive abilities of the controller. The framework does not depend on any specific type of procedures for ATC, so it may be used to evaluate complexity in both the current and future ATC environments. (Author) AbstractMany studies have been conducted in an attempt to determine the complexity involved in handling an Air Traffic Control (ATC) situation. As the aviation community moves towards a "free flight" environment, traffic complexity may not necessarily increase or decrease, but it will most certainly change.To that end, traffic complexity, as it is perceived by the controllers, who will still be ultimately responsible for traffic separation, becomes increasingly more important to understand. Previous studies of ATC complexity have based their measures on the amount of physical workload experienced by an Air Traffic Specialist (ATS). Unfortunately, many of these studies typically discount the importance of the cognitive activities of the controller, simply because this information is not easily measured. It is our position, however, that the complexity of ATC is better revealed through the analysis of controller strategies and decision making activities (cognitive tasks), and that this type of complexity may not be accurately reflected through measures of physical workload alone. In this paper, we will describe a framework for developing and evaluating a model of the perceived complexity of an air traffic situation, with specific regard to the traffic characteristics that impact the cognitive abilities of the controller. The framework does not depend on any specific type of procedures for ATC, so it may be used to evaluate complexity in both the current and future ATC environments.

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This paper describes the Collaborative Departure Queue Management (CDQM) concept, which has been developed by Mosaic ATM under funding from the FAA's Surface Trajectory Based Operations (STBO) project and NASA [1][2][3]. Under CDQM procedures, airport departure capacity is allocated to flight operators and metering procedures are used to manage the length of the runway queue. This management of the runway departure queue allows fuel burn, emissions and airport surface congestion to be reduced. Operational field evaluations of CDQM have been conducted over the last year at the Memphis International Airport. This paper provides initial results of these CDQM field evaluations.

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