Impact of a Multiobject-directed Spatial Orientation Ability on Air Traffic Conflict Detection Performance in Free Route Airspace

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jimmy Y. Zhong ◽  
Sim Kuan Goh ◽  
Chuan Jie Woo ◽  
Sameer Alam
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Orientation ◽  
Conflict Detection ◽  
Detection Performance ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Traffic Density ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers ◽  
Traffic Conflict ◽  
High Level ◽  
Task Conditions ◽  
Orientation Ability

Abstract With a focus on psychometric assessment, the current study investigated the extent to which spatial orientation ability (SOA), as conceptualized in the spatial cognition and navigation literature, predicted air traffic conflict detection performance in a simulated free route airspace (FRA). Within a FRA, airspace users have the flexibility to plan flights by selecting preferred routes between predefined waypoints. Despite such benefits, FRA implementation can introduce conflicts that are geometrically complex, and of which would require a high level of SOA engagement. Based on a sample of 20 young adults who have the prospect to become air traffic controllers (ATCOs), we found that response time-based performance on a newly developed computerized spatial orientation test (SOT) predicted time to loss of minimum separation (tLMS)-based performance on a conflict detection task to a moderately large extent under scenarios with high air traffic density. We explained these findings in light of similar or overlapping mental processes that were most likely activated optimally under task conditions featuring approximately equal numbers of outcome-relevant stimuli. We also discussed the potential use of the new SOT in relation to the selection of prospective ATCOs who can demonstrate high levels of conflict detection performance in FRA during training simulations.

Quantitative indicators of air traffic controllers’ attitude to the danger of errors

2020 ◽  
pp. 68-78
Author(s):  
O. M. Reva ◽  
V. V. Kamyshin ◽  
S. P. Borsuk ◽  
V. A. Shulhin ◽  
A. V. Nevynitsyn
Keyword(s):  
Human Factor ◽  
Differential Method ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Professional Activity ◽  
Aviation Accidents ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Level Of Significance ◽  
The Individual ◽  
High Level

The negative and persistent impact of the human factor on the statistics of aviation accidents and serious incidents makes proactive studies of the attitude of “front line” aviation operators (air traffic controllers, flight crewmembers) to dangerous actions or professional conditions as a key component of the current paradigm of ICAO safety concept. This “attitude” is determined through the indicators of the influence of the human factor on decision-making, which also include the systems of preferences of air traffic controllers on the indicators and characteristics of professional activity, illustrating both the individual perception of potential risks and dangers, and the peculiarities of generalized group thinking that have developed in a particular society. Preference systems are an ordered (ranked) series of n = 21 errors: from the most dangerous to the least dangerous and characterize only the danger preference of one error over another. The degree of this preference is determined only by the difference in the ranks of the errors and does not answer the question of how much time one error is more dangerous in relation to another. The differential method for identifying the comparative danger of errors, as well as the multistep technology for identifying and filtering out marginal opinions were applied. From the initial sample of m = 37 professional air traffic controllers, two subgroups mB=20 and mG=7 people were identified with statisti-cally significant at a high level of significance within the group consistency of opinions a = 1%. Nonpara-metric optimization of the corresponding group preference systems resulted in Kemeny’s medians, in which the related (middle) ranks were missing. Based on these medians, weighted coefficients of error hazards were determined by the mathematical prioritization method. It is substantiated that with the ac-cepted accuracy of calculations, the results obtained at the second iteration of this method are more ac-ceptable. The values of the error hazard coefficients, together with their ranks established in the preference systems, allow a more complete quantitative and qualitative analysis of the attitude of both individual air traffic controllers and their professional groups to hazardous actions or conditions.

Assessing a Retention Policy for Air Traffic Controllers

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 777-781
Author(s):  
Linda G. Pierce ◽  
Elaine M. Pfleiderer
Keyword(s):  
Success Rate ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Air Traffic Controller ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers ◽  
Retention Policy ◽  
High Level ◽  
Expensive Process ◽  
New Facility

Training a developmental (air traffic controller in training) to certification is a lengthy and expensive process. To limit losses due to poor performance in training, the FAA has implemented a policy to reassign some developmentals to less complex air traffic control (ATC) facilities following voluntary or involuntary removal from training at more complex facilities. The National Employee Service Team (NEST) is implementing the policy. We reviewed the NEST processes and assessed effectiveness based on the extent to which the NEST recommendations are accepted and the likelihood that developmentals reassigned in accordance with NEST recommendations succeed in training at the new facility. We found that NEST recommendations to retain or terminate developmentals and type and level facility for reassignment are accepted by the FAA at a high level. Furthermore, the success rate of developmentals at a new facility is greater than 90%.

System analysis: the kemeny’s median as an optimization model of the preferences group system of air traffic controllers of the danger of the characteristic errors

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. M. Reva ◽  
V. V. Kamyshуn ◽  
V. A. Shulgin ◽  
A. V. Nevynitsyn
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Factor ◽  
System Analysis ◽  
Individual Preference ◽  
Rank Correlation ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
General Group ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers ◽  
Preference System ◽  
High Level

The systems of advantages of aviation operators of the “front line” on the indicators and characteristics of their professional activities is one of the indicators demonstrating the influence of the human factor on decision-making, and, consequently, on the “attitude towards dangerous actions or conditions”, which, in its turn, is one of the components of the current ICAO safety paradigm. The preference system is understood as an ordered series of the specified indicators and characteristics from the most dangerous to the least dangerous, including errors that can be made by air traffic controllers. Group systems of advantages have a number of properties (peculiarities of the prevailing in a particular society — control shift — opinions on the perception of threats and hazards, the influence of the attitude of instructor personnel to threats and dangers and the technology to overcome them, statistics of aviation accidents and serious incidents in the area of responsibility, etc.) that are desirable to take into account in the safety management process and that are found by aggregating individual systems of benefits. This aggregation occurs using strategies for making group decisions, from which one should point to the strategy of summing and averaging ranks, which is riskier, but allows establishing the degree of consistency of opinions using the Kendall concordance coefficient. An important strategy is based on the classical Savage decision-making criteria, which has an optimization content and allows minimizing deviations in opinions regarding the dangers of mistakes of both the majority and the minority of the group members. The Kemeny’s median has a pronounced nonparametric optimization content, but it is almost never used in studies of the influence of the human factor on decision making in aviation systems. Individual systems of preferences of m=37 air traffic controllers on the spectrum of n=21 characteristic errors were constructed by them using the usual method of pairwise comparisons and normative establishment of a part of the total hazard. The use of the technology for detecting and filtering out marginal thoughts — individual systems of advantages, which significantly differ from the general group, made it possible to distinguish a subgroup mA=26 with a high level of intragroup consistency of opinions: the coefficient of concordance is W=0.7144 and is statistically significant at a high level of significance a=1%. Individual preference systems of members of the mА subgroup were used to implement the heuristic algorithm and construct the desired Kemeny’s median, which improves the consistent preference system and has an unusually high coincidence with the group advantage systems obtained using other group decision strategies: the average value of Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient in 7 times increased its minimum acceptable value.

The classical criteria application for the decision­making uncertainty risk determination of the preferences system by the air traffic controllers on the characteristic errors hazards

2020 ◽  
pp. 54-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
O.M. Reva ◽  
V.V. Kamyshуn ◽  
S.P. Borsuk ◽  
A.V. Nevynitsyn ◽  
V. A. Shulgin
Keyword(s):  
Human Factor ◽  
Individual Preference ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Simulator Training ◽  
Professional Activity ◽  
Group Preference ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers ◽  
Level Of Significance ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Impact

Given the influence of the human factor on decision-making processes by aviation operators of the “leading edge”, therefore, — of the flight safety, individual and group preference systems as formalized representations of air traffic controllers about a number of spectrum ordered by danger have been investigated from n=21 of characteristic errors. That has a pronounced positive proactive character. Explicating their opinions, the air traffic controllers simultaneously form discriminating, memorizing skills, therefore, — avoidance of mistakes in a professional activity: the subjects made one third fewer errors in comparison with other air traffic controllers in the process of simulator training. Group preference systems allow identifying the features of the functioning of individual socie­ties — dispatch shifts, possible group deformations, as well as the impact on their members of the presentation features of the performing technological procedures specifics by instructors. m=37 individual preference systems of the air traffic controllers, which were involved in research, were built by pairwise comparison of the danger of errors and the application of a differential method of distributing the indicator of their total danger. That contributed to conducting of 420 pairwise error hazard comparisons. The implementation of a multi-step procedure for identifying and screening out 10 marginal opinions has led to a statistically consistent group system of preferences: Kendall’s concordance coefficient equals is W=0,700 and it became statistically significant at a high level of significance of a = 1 %. The decision matrix was formed from mА=27 individual preference systems of the air traffic controllers, which, by the definition, is a “cost matrix” and for the solution of which a methodology for the correct application of the classical decision criteria by Wald, Savage, Bayes-Laplace, Hurwitz has been implemented. It revealed the identity of the group systems of preferences obtained by Wald and Savage criterion, as well as the Bayes-Laplace criterion and such a strategy of group decisions as summation and averaging of ranks. The empirical preferences are generally the same: Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients are unusually high (RB–L–W/S=0,8922, RB–L–HW=0,9263, RW/S–HW=0,9477) and statistically gullible at a high level of significance for human factor studies . The following values of the normative indicator of the not distinguishing dangers of error risk in the group preference systems are obtained: R*BL=0 , R*HW=0,19·10-2, R*W/S=5,58·10-2. The value of this indicator for the group is R*g=0,52·10-2.

scholarly journals Neurophysiological Vigilance Characterisation and Assessment: Laboratory and Realistic Validations Involving Professional Air Traffic Controllers

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marika Sebastiani ◽  
Gianluca Di Flumeri ◽  
Pietro Aricò ◽  
Nicolina Sciaraffa ◽  
Fabio Babiloni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Management ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Performance Decrement ◽  
Level Of Automation ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers ◽  
Out Of The Loop ◽  
Significant Performance ◽  
High Level ◽  
Channel Configuration

Vigilance degradation usually causes significant performance decrement. It is also considered the major factor causing the out-of-the-loop phenomenon (OOTL) occurrence. OOTL is strongly related to a high level of automation in operative contexts such as the Air Traffic Management (ATM), and it could lead to a negative impact on the Air Traffic Controllers’ (ATCOs) engagement. As a consequence, being able to monitor the ATCOs’ vigilance would be very important to prevent risky situations. In this context, the present study aimed to characterise and assess the vigilance level by using electroencephalographic (EEG) measures. The first study, involving 13 participants in laboratory settings allowed to find out the neurophysiological features mostly related to vigilance decrements. Those results were also confirmed under realistic ATM settings recruiting 10 professional ATCOs. The results demonstrated that (i) there was a significant performance decrement related to vigilance reduction; (ii) there were no substantial differences between the identified neurophysiological features in controlled and ecological settings, and the EEG-channel configuration defined in laboratory was able to discriminate and classify vigilance changes in ATCOs’ vigilance with high accuracy (up to 84%); (iii) the derived two EEG-channel configuration was able to assess vigilance variations reporting only slight accuracy reduction.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document