Simulations of Credits Concept with User Input for Collaborative Air Traffic Management

This paper describes the procedure and outcome of a human-in-the-loop simulation experiment. The purpose of the simulation was to study feasibility of incorporating user flight preferences in air traffic demand and capacity management. Five airline dispatchers specified flight priorities for multiple routes. These priorities were used for airspace constraint management by creating a new credit ranked flight departure schedule. One air traffic manager prescribed and managed the airspace constraints. The dispatchers were trained on the system using different traffic scenarios. A realistic data set with convective weather was used for generating final results. Based on the experiment results, the credits concept allowed users to prioritize their flights and to distribute delays as per their preference. It was also observed that the delays could be reduced and better distributed among users with respect to a first-come-first served schedule, without violating airspace constraints. The study elicited several factors for prioritizing flights from the users’ perspective, which could be used in future fast-time simulations.