The Role of the Air Traffic Controller in Future Air Traffic Management: An Empirical Study of Active Control versus Passive Monitoring

Abstract

Proposals for air traffic management such as Free Flight call for a transfer of responsibility for separation between aircraft from air traffic controllers (ATCos) to pilots. Under many proposals, the role of the ATCo will change from one of active control to passive monitoring. The present study directly compared these types of control with respect to ATCo mental workload, conflict detection, and memory. Eighteen ATCos participated in an air traffic control simulation of Free Flight procedures under moderate and high traffic load. Dependent variables included accuracy and timeliness in detecting potential conflicts, accepting and handing off aircraft, mental workload (as assessed by a secondary task, heart rate variability, and subjective ratings), and memory for aircraft location. High traffic density and passive control both degraded conflict detection performance. Actual or potential applications of this research include the recommendation that designs for future air traffic management keep authority for separation of aircraft with the controller.

The role of algorithm and result comprehensibility of automated scheduling on complacency

“…This failure has been termed complacency (Hoc, 2001;Parasuraman, Molloy, & Singh, 1993;Smith, McCoy, & Layton, 1997) and has been mainly studied in supervision tasks that imply automation or computers (for example, car driving: Hoc et al, 2006;airline pilots: Layton, Smith, & McCoy, 1994; air traffic control: Metzger & Parasuraman, 2001). However, other tasks that are only partially automated, such as those found in manufacturing scheduling, are also affected by this problem.…”

Aiding Planning in Air Traffic Control: An Experimental Investigation of the Effects of Perceptual Information Integration

“…Recent research suggested the advantage of active control over passive monitoring in air traffic management (e.g., Metzger & Parasuraman, 2001). Our findings can be applied to the design and evaluation of interfaces that keep the controller in the loop.…”

Human Factors and Ergonomics in Automation Design

“…Third, automatic control can induce the operator to disengage and direct attention to other activities, further compromising the feedback from the system. The tendency to rely complacently on automation, particularly during multitask situations, may reflect this tendency to disengage from the monitoring task (Parasuraman et al, 1993(Parasuraman et al, , 1994Metzger and Parasuraman, 2001). Finally, the operator's mental model may be inadequate to guide expectations, situation awareness, and control.…”