New Concepts for Electronic Flight Data Management in Airport Traffic Control Towers

Airport operations logged by the 449 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Airport Traffic Control Towers (ATCTs) are projected to increase from 63.1 million in 2004 to 68.8 million in 2008. In anticipation of the increase in air traffic, the FAA is investigating the potential effects of implementing an electronic flight data system (EFDS) in ATCTs. The EFDS would replace the paper Flight Progress Strips (FPSs) used by controllers since the 1930s. It has been stated that the FPS has become an historical artifact that limits the usefulness of flight data and consumes valuable cognitive resources. In today’s ATCT environment, controllers must manually update information, record clearances, and physically pass FPSs from one controller to another. The inherent physical limitations of FPSs also restrict the controllers’ ability to communicate flight data both within and between facilities. Concept research must be conducted to explore new ways of handling air traffic and its associated flight data. One approach is to transform the current FPS into an electronic format without changing the fundamental way that work is accomplished. However, there is the risk that without fundamental changes to the ATC task, controller workload may become overwhelming and prove a limiting factor to the overall NAS performance. New approaches and their risks must be explored, while keeping user acceptance in mind. This report describes the processes and methodologies used to create two prototype Electronic Flight Data Interfaces (EFDIs) for the FAA ATCTs. The author limited the scope of the prototype EFDIs to the controllers’ most common tasks. A limited scope was necessary to simplify the task and to enable examination of the basic concepts of using Electronic Flight Data (EFD). This report also presents an overview of the prototype EFDIs and detailed descriptions of the EFDIs.

• Record URL:
  • http://www.airporttech.tc.faa.gov/Airport-R-D/Conference-and-Workshop/Airport-RD-Conference-Detail/dt/Detail/ItemID/376/New-Concepts-for-Electronic-Flight-Data-Management-in-Airport-Traffic-Control-Towers
• Record URL:
  • http://www.airtech.tc.faa.gov/naptf/att07/2007/Papers/P07062%20Truitt.pdf
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  Federal Aviation Administration

  800 Independence Avenue, SW
  Washington, DC  United States  20591
• Authors:
  • Truitt, Todd R
• Conference:
  • 2007 Worldwide Airport Technology Transfer Conference
  • Location: Atlantic City New Jersey, United States
  • Date: 2007-4-16 to 2007-4-18
• Publication Date: 2007

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Photos; References;
• Pagination: 16p
• Monograph Title: 2007 FAA Worldwide Airport Technology Transfer Conference: New Directions in Airport Technology

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air traffic control; Air traffic controllers; Airport control towers; Graphical user interfaces
• Uncontrolled Terms: Electronic flight data; Flight progress strips
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Data and Information Technology; Terminals and Facilities;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01617371
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Nov 21 2016 1:43PM