Integrated Arrival/Departure Control Service
("Big Airspace")
Updated:02:58 PM March 20, 2009
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The increasing number of flights has placed a severe strain on the NAS, especially around major metropolitan areas. Previously, Truitt, McAnulty, and Willems (2004) tested and found benefits in procedures designed to address some of these system pressures. They evaluated the New York Integrated Control Complex concept that extended terminal separation standards (i.e., 3 nm instead of 5 nm lateral separation) and other terminal procedures (i.e., diverging courses) to airspace farther away from airports to ease traffic flow in and out of those areas. The concept also collocated terminal and en route facilities to promote more effective communication and coordination. The Integrated Arrival/Departure Air Traffic Control Service (known informally as Big Airspace) applies these procedures to other busy airspace. Big Airspace also includes the use of Area Navigation routes and dynamic resectorization capabilities to make airspace boundaries more flexible so that traffic can be more easily rerouted when weather, equipment outages, or active special use airspace disrupt normal flows.
The Air Traffic Organization (ATO) Air Traffic System Concept Development Group developed the Big Airspace concept and sponsored several efforts to examine its feasibility, including fast-time and human-in-the-loop (HITL) simulations. Researchers from the Human Factors Team-Atlantic City conducted the real-time, HITL with 24 controllers from field facilities. The simulation compared a baseline condition that used current airspace design and procedures to two conditions that used the Big Airspace procedures, one that simulated a common en route and terminal control room environment and another in which the control rooms were not combined. The simulation included high volume traffic scenarios and arrival and departure sectors. Weather impacted arrival traffic and drove the need for dynamic resectorization.
The results provided support for the Big Airspace concept. The aircraft moved through the busy arrival sectors more efficiently in both of the Big Airspace conditions than in the baseline condition. The participants working those sectors also made fewer ground-ground transmissions, issued fewer altitude and heading clearances, and needed less assistance to hold or maneuver aircraft outside of the airspace. Many of the subjective measures also supported the concept. Workload ratings indicated that it was easier to manage traffic when airspace resectorization was available. The participants also rated several variables, including their performance, situation awareness, and ability to move traffic through the sector, higher when the Big Airspace procedures were in use. There were very few meaningful differences found between the two Big Airspace conditions.
Federal Aviation Administration
William J. Hughes Technical Center, Building 28
Atlantic City International Airport, NJ 08405
Phone:(609) 485-8629
Fax: (609) 485-6218
carolina.zingale@faa.gov
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