Design and Operational Evaluation of the Traffic Management Advisor at the Ft. Worth Air Route Traffic Control Center

¤£ ¦ Summary NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have designed and developed an automation tool known as the Traffic Management Advisor (TMA). The TMA is a time-based strategic planning tool that provides Traffic Management Coordinators (TMCs) and En Route Air Traffic Controllers the ability to efficiently optimize the capacity of a demand-impacted airport. The TMA consists of trajectory prediction, constraint-based runway scheduling, traffic flow visualization and controller advisories. The TMA was used and operationally evaluated for thirty-nine rush traffic periods during a one month period in the Summer of 1996 at the Fort Worth Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC). The evaluations included all shifts of air traffic operations as well as periods of inclement weather. Performance data were collected for engineering and human factor analysis and compared with similar operations without the TMA. The engineering data indicate that the operations with the TMA show a one to two minute per aircraft delay reduction during rush periods. The human factor data indicate a perceived reduction in en route controller workload as well as an increase in job satisfaction. Upon completion of the evaluation, the TMA has continued to be a primary traffic management tool of daily operations at the Fort Worth ARTCC.