Wright State University CORE Scholar International Symposium on Aviation International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005 Psychology 2005 Teams, Teamwork, and Automation in Air Traffic Control Philip W. Maynard Esa M. Rantanen Follow this and additional works at: https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/isap_2005 Part of the Other Psychiatry and Psychology Commons Repository Citation Maynard, P. W., & Rantanen, E. M. (2005). Teams, Teamwork, and Automation in Air Traffic Control. 2005 International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, 484-489. https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/isap_2005/76 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the International Symposium on Aviation Psychology at CORE Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005 by an authorized administrator of CORE Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. TEAMS, TEAMWORK, AND AUTOMATION IN AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL Philip W. Maynard and Esa M. Rantanen Aviation Human Factors Division, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Savoy, IL, USA Many recent initiatives involving social psychology applications in the aviation world have redoubled the interest in the concept of teams and teamwork. The importance of teamwork in airline cockpits, hailed as cockpit (or crew-) resource management (CRM), has been recognized for a relatively long time. It is also widely agreed that extensive and effective interaction among participants in the National Airspace System (NAS), pilots, air traffic controllers, and airline operations personnel, is tantamount to the daily successes of the nation’s air transportation industry. Team aspects in air traffic control (ATC) are, however, much more convoluted than intra-cockpit teams or top-level teamwork between NAS elements. The ATC system involves a complicated network of facilities, technology, and personnel, which all must interact synergistically, often under time pressure, to ensure safe, efficient, and orderly flow of air traffic. It is perhaps due to this complexity that there has been a significant deficiency in research activity relating to teamwork in ATC. Yet, inadequate coordination between controllers has been considered a causal factor in a substantial proportion of low to moderate severity operational errors. Furthermore, automation tools developed for controllers are primarily focused on supporting the individual controller, while many, if not all of ATC functions are a team effort. In this paper we review the literature relevant to the team concept in the ATC domain, identify and characterize the different teams controllers belong to either simultaneously (e.g., intra- and inter-facility teams) or in different operational environments, and catalog the results from research literature as they pertain to the aforemen- tioned teams in ATC and their specific characteristics. Our principal focus is on concepts such as taskload, work- load, and situation awareness. Within this framework, we also map recent automation applications to ATC teams, hence highlighting their impact on the team dimension of human factors in ATC. Introduction trollers’ performance individually as well as on their interactions as members of various teams. It may be argued that the global air traffic control (ATC) system forms the largest singular team in Implementation of automation in the worldwide ATC aviation. It involves a complicated network of facili- system’s team of personnel to create safer and more ties, technology, and personnel which all must inter- efficient traffic management is easier said than done. act synergistically and often under severe time pres- There are many different members within the ATC sure to meet the ultimate objectives of ATC: safe, system that have different and even conflicting strate- efficient, and orderly flow of air traffic from one lo- gic and tactical goals. Supporting these occasionally cation to another. Despite these inherent characteris- incongruent goals will require interfaces tailored to tics of the National Airspace System (NAS) in the each position and job responsibility. Evaluating such a U.S. and its international constituents, air traffic design has been described as a suitability assessment. management (ATM) research with respect to automa- A suitability assessment is the third part of a three- tion-supported team decision-making has been fairly stage progressive assessment process geared towards sparse. In fact, there has been a significant deficiency systematic evaluation of system usability and task suit- in objective scientific measures of ATC teamwork ability of the system. Suitability assessments focus on alone (Bailey & Thompson, 2000). Although this the match between the system design and the user’s area is novel and still emerging, its further study in task. A system is considered suitable if design features operational environments would potentially enhance and functions support users well as they perform their the effective use of automation to aid team decision- tasks (Sanford et al., 1993). In this case, it is appropri- making. Lapses in decision-making, coordination, ate to evaluate a system in the context of the control- and planning have been implicated in accidents and lers’ individual task of managing traffic while main- incidents alike and identified as latent problem areas taining established team responsibilities. in the NAS. According to a study by Rogers and Nye, coordination between controllers was considered a However, there is a pervasive tradeoff between indi- causal factor in 15% of low to moderate severity op- vidual and team suitability assessments. Optimal erational errors from 1988-1991 (Bailey, Broach, automation for an individual is not always ideal for Thompson, Enos, 1999). Fortunately, a newfound team performance (Hopkin, 1995). Tantamount in interest has recently blossomed in this area due to the implementing automation as a ‘team player’ is a sys- strong infusion of new technology into the ATC sys- tem that allows members of teams to maintain the tem and the foreseeable impact of automation on con- best possible shared situation awareness (SA) and 484 mental models. The importance of shared SA and CTAS is primarily concerned with downstream flow mental models is forcefully explained by Wickens et and arrival traffic. As the name implies, it is utilized al. (1998) and specifically in a study by Salas, Stout, by both TRACON and en route center controllers. and Cannon-Bowers (1994). This literature strongly The TMA uses an interactive, menu driven timeline asserts the need for shared mental models and SA as and a plan view display for Graphical User Interfaces a linchpin for optimal team decision-making. In this (GUIs). The DA and FAST use graphical advisories paper, optimal team decision-making will be consid- and work in conjunction with the TMA kit. ered a function of a team’s performance due to the interdependent nature of personnel and equipment in SMS the NAS. Ground control of aircraft and scheduling of depar- Current Automation Applications in ATC ture runways and times is handled by tower and ground controllers who are assisted by the SMS. The We will discuss ATC team decision-making primar- SMS advises and informs these controllers with run- ily in the context of the latest ATC automation tools: way balancing and departure schedule optimization the Center-TRACON Automation System (CTAS) (Walton, Quinn, & Atkins, 2002). The SMS features and its components. The User Request Evaluation four types of displays at the controllers’ disposal: Tool (URET) and Surface management System maps, timelines, load graphs, and tables. The map (SMS) are not part of the CTAS toolbox, but will also display shows the location and direction of aircraft. be discussed. More specifically, we will examine The timeline predicts when an aircraft will be at a how these systems present information to the indi- specific location (gate, runway etc), but does not vidual controller to support the underlying goals of show current aircraft position. Load graph displays the NAS and the more immediate objectives of the show the current and forecast demand on airport re- controller. CTAS is highly functional in that it fea- sources. Meanwhile, the Flight and status tables pro- tures specific tools and interfaces for each control vide flight-specific information (e.g., OUT and OFF position. Such features, however, may conflict with times and departure runway; Atkins et al., 2004). established team norms and could undermine team performance (Hopkin, 1995). Furthermore, the auto- URET mation that reduces team norms and standards will also disguise weakness or inconsistencies in team The en route sector teams are assisted by the URET. performance. This relates to actions of a controller This particular tool, which is independent of CTAS, troubleshooting being less visible to someone who allows these controllers to test scenarios of rerouting might share the same problem. Thus, a significant without having to mentally extrapolate the flight aspect of implementing automation in the ATC do- paths of numerous types of aircraft traveling at dif- main would be evaluation of these consequences and ferent speeds and altitudes. This tool takes into ac- their relationship to safety. These safety conse- count, among other factors, aircraft performance and quences currently are not directly apparent, however. weather conditions to create a 4-dimensional flight Issues with automation in ATC include