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This paper describes research on the Integrated Departure Route Planning (IDRP) operational concept and supporting functions that will assist Traffic Flow Management (TFM) personnel conducting departure management. IDRP will provide automated support and information to help decision makers evaluate and implement different solutions, taking into account all significant data such as filed flight plans and acceptable alternatives, surface departure queues, predicted convective weather and traffic congestion impacts to routes in the terminal area and nearby en route airspace, and forecast uncertainty. By bringing all of these factors into a single integrated environment, IDRP will reduce the time needed to make departure management decisions and coordinate their implementation, increase the effectiveness of the decisions made, and support efficient revision of departure management plans as weather and traffic situations change.IDRP's background and operational concept are described, followed by an overview of a prototype used to demonstrate and evaluate the concept. Results are presented from a series of interviews with experts having TFM experience; these sessions helped to enhance the operational concept and refine the information requirements for the prototype. Next steps are to implement the IDRP prototype in operational centers for the purpose of obtaining further data about the usage and benefits of the capabilities, and to conduct additional laboratory research exploring more highly automated IDRP functionality and addressing integration issues.

FAA traffic managers require decision support tools that will help them visualize the complex interactions of air traffic flows. With advanced tools, they can more effectively and efficiently carry out their responsibilities. MITRE/CAASD and the FAA have developed one such tool, the Future Traffic Display, which displays future positions of air traffic. Future Traffic Display enables traffic managers to examine both current flight plan trajectories and the predicted results of proposed traffic flow management strategies. Evaluations conducted with the Future Traffic Display, both in a simulation environment and in field shadow mode operations, show that traffic managers find the Future Traffic Display useful for numerous tasks: analyzing potential problems, identifying flows involved in the problem, visualizing the effect of a proposed traffic management initiative for resolving the problem, monitoring customer-submitted preferred routes, determining whether those routes could be accommodated, and coordinating with customers and other traffic managers. After the most recent evaluations, both traffic manager and customer participants affirmed the value of Future Traffic Display, listing it as their top priority for implementation.

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The authors present the business case for using the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and its related technologies (Document Type Definitions, Extensible Stylesheet Language, XML Schemas, and XQuery to name just a few) in Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) initiatives that involve fielding air traffic management (ATM) operational systems which will (or may) need to share information with other ATM operational systems. The growing use of these technologies in a wide variety of aviation related applications, several of which are noted in this paper, as well as the growth in the range, robustness, and availability of the technologies themselves lead the authors to recommend that FAA give explicit consideration to using XML to facilitate fielding interoperable ATM applications.