Bonny Parke

AN EVALUATION OF THE TAXIWAY NAVIGATION AND SITUATION AWARENESS (T-NASA) SYSTEM IN HIGH-FIDELITY SIMULATION

The effects of an electronic moving map and a HUD on ground taxi performance in reduced visibility were examined in a high-fidelity simulation. Sixteen commercial flight crews completed 21 trials, each consisting of an autoland arrival to Chicago O’Hare and taxi to an apron area. Relative to a baseline (paper-chart only) condition, the EMM/HUD combination increased forward speed by 21%, and reduced navigation errors by nearly 100%. These results, together with workload ratings, situation awareness ratings, analyses of crew interactions, and pilot feedback, provide strong evidence that the combination of head-up symbology and an EMM can substantially improve both the efficiency and the safety of ground operations.

Best Practices in Shift Turnovers: Implications for Reducing Aviation Maintenance Turnover Errors as Revealed in ASRS Reports

Effective shift turnover is critical to safety in many work environments, including medicine, the oil industry, and aviation maintenance. To gain insight into aviation maintenance turnover procedures and possible improvements to them, we examined NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) maintenance incident reports involving shift turnover communication problems. We used the Boeing Maintenance Error Decision Aid (MEDA) coding system to code 1,182 ASRS maintenance incident reports. We compared the incidents involving shift turnover-related communication problems (n = 46) with incidents involving non-turnover-related communication problems (n = 37) and with other maintenance incidents (n = 1,099). Turnover-related incidents involved a significantly higher proportion of equipment that was classified by ASRS as “critical” than either of the other 2 samples, and had a significantly higher proportion of severe consequences. We suggest improvements to turnover work practices and include a generic checklist for effective turnovers to aid in turnover development.

Integrated Demand Management: Coordinating Strategic and Tactical Flow Scheduling Operations

NASA Ames researchers are developing a nearto mid-term concept called Integrated Demand Management (IDM). The objective of IDM is to improve National Airspace System (NAS) performance when the capacity of major high-volume resources is insufficient for the expected demand, using procedural coordination of different NextGen traffic management capabilities. An arrival capacity problem involving Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) served as a use case for concept development. Under IDM, Traffic Flow Management System (TFMS) tools are used to pre-condition traffic into the Time-Based Flow Management (TBFM) system, enabling TBFM to better manage delivery to the capacity-constrained destination. The proposed solution leverages three capabilities: (1) the Collaborative Trajectory Options Program (CTOP) tools within TFMS to condition arrival demand into TBFM, (2) required-time-of-arrival (RTA) flight deck capabilities to support conformance to CTOP-planned TBFM entry times, and (3) TBFM metering to manage delivery to the capacity-constrained airport. The solution was refined through a series of human-in-the-loop (HITL) simulation studies and demonstrations with input from the FAA, airline stakeholders and subject matter experts. This paper describes the concept and results from an early proof-of-concept HITL experiment that focused on the EWR traffic problem.

Evaluation of a tactical surface metering tool for Charlotte Douglas international airport via human-in-the-loop simulation

NASA has been working with the FAA and aviation industry partners to develop and demonstrate new concepts and technologies that integrate arrival, departure, and surface traffic management capabilities. In March 2017, NASA conducted a human-in-the-loop (HITL) simulation for integrated surface and airspace operations, modeling Charlotte Douglas International Airport, to evaluate the operational procedures and information requirements for the tactical surface metering tool, and data exchange elements between the airline controlled ramp and ATC Tower. In this paper, we focus on the calibration of the tactical surface metering tool using various metrics measured from the HITL simulation results. Key performance metrics include gate hold times from pushback advisories, taxi-in/out times, runway throughput, and departure queue size. Subjective metrics presented in this paper include workload, situational awareness, and acceptability of the metering tool and its calibration.

Crew Climate and Performance: Use of Group Diagrams Based on Behavioral Ratings

A method of depicting crew climate using a group diagram based on behavioral ratings is described. Behavioral ratings were made of twelve three-person professional airline cockpit crews in full-mission simulations. These crews had been part of an earlier study in which captains had been had been grouped into three personality types, based on pencil and paper pre-tests. We found that low error rates were related to group climate variables as well as positive captain behaviors.

Evaluation of approval request/call for release coordination procedures for Charlotte Douglas international airport

NASA is collaborating with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and aviation industry partners to develop and demonstrate new concepts and technologies for Integrated Arrival, Departure, and Surface (IADS) traffic management capabilities under the Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD-2) project. One of the goals of the IADS capabilities in the ATD-2 project is to increase predictability and throughput of airspace operations by improving Traffic Management Initiative (TMI) compliance. This paper focuses on the Approval Request (APREQ) procedures developed for the ATD-2 project between the Air Traffic Control (ATC) Tower at Charlotte Douglas International Airport and Washington Center. In March 2017, NASA conducted a Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) simulation to evaluate the operational procedures and information requirements for the APREQ procedures in the ATD-2 IADS system between ATC Tower and Center. The findings from the HITL are used to compare ATD-2 APREQ procedures with information about current day APREQ procedures.

Work Schedules and Fatigue Management Strategies in Air Traffic Control (ATC)

This panel will address the role of fatigue in air traffic control (ATC) operations and strategies for developing evidence-based fatigue risk mitigation strategies. Following an introduction to the history of ATC fatigue research, panelists will describe a two-part study with current air traffic controllers involving a web-based survey (available to all U.S. controllers) and validated objective measures of fatigue and alertness. Approaches to modeling and requirements for a Fatigue Risk Management System will be discussed.

Passing The Baton: An Experimental Study of Shift Handover

Shift handovers occur in many safety-critical environments, including aviation maintenance, medicine, air traffic control, and mission control for space shuttle and space station operations. Shift handovers are associated with increased risk of communication failures and human error. In dynamic industries, errors and accidents occur disproportionately after shift handover. Typical shift handovers involve transferring information from an outgoing shift to an incoming shift via written logs, or in some cases, face-to-face briefings. The current study explores the possibility of improving written communication with the support modalities of audio and video recordings, as well as face-to-face briefings. Fifty participants participated in an experimental task which mimicked some of the critical challenges involved in transferring information between shifts in industrial settings. All three support modalities—face-to-face, video, and audio recordings, reduced task errors significantly over written communication alone. The support modality most preferred by participants was face-to-face communication; the least preferred was written communication alone.

Impact of Data Exchange Provided by ATD2 Tools at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport

Data Exchange and Integration is necessary for progress towards an Integrated Arrival, Departure, and Surface (IADS) traffic management capability. In collaboration with the FAA, NASA has introduced new data exchange elements to Charlotte-Douglas International Airport air traffic facilities, including the American Airlines ramp, as part of the Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD2). This paper describes the new tools that deliver these elements, and the human factors impact of the tools as measured by post-bank surveys. Workload was unaffected by ATD2 tool use, and situational awareness was improved in the Tower and with Ramp controllers in the second round of surveys. Respondents described their tools as more helpful if they included ATD2 tools (1) in the Tower for insuring compliance for aircraft under a Traffic Management Initiative, (2) in the TRACON when actively used for many TRACON tasks, and (3) in the Ramp in the second round of surveys.

Integrated Demand Management (IDM) - Minimizing Unanticipated Excessive Departure Delay while Ensuring Fairness from a Traffic Management Initiative

This paper introduces NASA’s Integrated Demand Management (IDM) concept and presents the results from an early proof-of-concept evaluation and an exploratory experiment. The initial development of the IDM concept was focused on integrating two systems—i.e. the FAA’s newly deployed Traffic Flow Management System (TFMS) tool called the Collaborative Trajectory Options Program (CTOP) and the Time-Based Flow Management (TBFM) system with Extended Metering (XM) capabilities—to manage projected heavy traffic demand into a capacity-constrained airport. A human-in-the-loop (HITL) simulation experiment was conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of the initial IDM concept by adapting it to an arrival traffic problem at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) during clear weather conditions. In this study, the CTOP was utilized to strategically plan the arrival traffic demand by controlling take-off times of both shortand long-haul flights (long-hauls specify aircraft outside TBFM regions and short-hauls specify aircraft within TBFM regions) in a way that results in equitable delays among the groups. Such strategic planning decreases airborne and ground delay within TBFM by delivering manageable long-haul traffic demand while reserving sufficient slots in the overhead streams for the short-haul departures. A manageable traffic demand ensures the TBFM scheduler does not assign more airborne delay than a particular airspace is capable of absorbing. TBFM uses its time-based metering capabilities to deliver the desirable throughput by tactically coordinating and scheduling the long-haul flights and short-haul departures. Additional research was performed to explore the use of Required Time of Arrival (RTA) capabilities as a potential control mechanism to improve the arrival time accuracy of scheduled long-haul traffic. Results indicated that both shortand long-haul flights received similar ground delays. In addition, there was a noticeable reduction in the total amount of excessive, unanticipated ground delays, i.e. delays that are frequently imposed on the shorthaul flight in current day operations due to saturation in the overhead stream, commonly referred to as ‘double penalty.’ Furthermore, the concept achieved the target throughput while minimizing the expected cost associated with overall delays in arrival traffic. Assessment of the RTA capabilities showed that there was indeed improvement of the scheduled entry times into TBFM regions by using RTA capabilities. However, with respect to reduction in delays incurred within TBFM, there was no observable benefit of improving the precision of entry times for long-haul flights.