Airspace Restriction Planner for Sector Congestion Management

In today's operations, managing sector congestion problems is inherently a manual process. This paper describes a capability, called the Airspace Restriction Planner (ARP), which is designed to predict and manage sector congestion problems. The capability allows the Traffic Management Coordinators (TMCs) to identify the sectors that are going to be over-congested, identify the detailed characteristics of incoming traffic, and plan traffic flow management restrictions such as altitude capping, rerouting, departure delays, and time-based metering or miles-in-trail restrictions. The capability also provides immediate feedback on the effectiveness of the planned restrictions prior to their execution. This capability was prototyped using the NASA's Future Air Traffic Management Concepts Evaluation Tool. Using Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center's (ARTCC's) Ravenna sector airspace, human-in-the-loop simulations were conducted to examine the effectiveness and usability of the ARP. The results indicated that the TMCs were able to plan more accurate traffic flow management restrictions with the ARP. All eight participants indicated that this capability is valuable and needed for more precise ARTCC-level sector congestion management operations.