Title: Human Factors of Precision Taxiing under Two Levels of Automation
Abstract: New air traffic control concepts and automation tools designed to improve the capacity of the National Airspace System are continually researched, including those that test early prototypes and their impact on the operators to adequately perform the task at hand. This study investigated the workload, situation awareness and other human factors issues related to using a prototype surface automation tool (“GoSAFE-Ground Operations Situation Awareness and Efficiency Tool”) for managing precision taxi operations, with increased traffic relative to current day operations. Our team of controller participants working four air traffic positions handled airport traffic using GoSAFE under two different levels of automation: (1) Mixed voice/datalink [partially equipped] and (2) Datalink only [fully equipped]. The study found statistically significant differences on workload due to automation level. The impact of automation was also investigated for the four air traffic control positions. Results on one situation awareness measure were largely consistent with the workload findings. While realizing these differences, workload and situation awareness levels remained manageable and reasonable across all conditions and positions. Our controller participants also reported acceptability and feasibility ratings and provided feedback on the usability of the user interface. Results suggested that the GoSAFE automation helped the participants cope with the differences in their respective areas of responsibility and an increased volume of traffic, while maintaining adequate information resources required for effective air traffic control operations. The study-participants did have difficulty with some of the interface characteristics of the automation tool, such as use of color and data block size. As with any prototype surface automation tool, additional research and development needs to address these types of issues in order to insure effective use of the tool. This research will make it possible to ascertain the future impact of the tool on other system characteristics such as throughput and safety.
Publication Year: 2010
Publication Date: 2010-04-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 3
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