Analysis of Team Communication and Collaboration in En-Route Air Traffic Control

Ethnographic field observation was carried out at the Tokyo Air Traffic Control Center to obtain video, radio communication, verbal conversation, and journal records. Having analyzed these data based on the cognitive model of a radar controller of our previous work and a notion of Team Situation Awareness (TSA), a cognitive model of an ATC team has been established. It was revealed that instantiation of TSA heavily owes to verbal communication but that role assignment among team members is implicitly and smoothly determined once TSA has been established. Team cognitive process of ATC controllers is therefore well described by TSA development and Naturalistic Decision-Making (NDM).