This study investigates the operational potential of an in-flight weather awareness system displaying weather hazard cues that are either invisible (i.e. Clear Air Turbulence and Icing) or visible only during clear visibility operation (i.e. Cumulonimbi, and Volcanic Ash). The study focuses on investigating (i) the potential uses of the display, (ii) its usability deficiencies, and (iii) its potential for pilot error. Methodology: A small-scale human-in-the-loop simulation coupled with expert observations, followed by a questionnaire and in-depth interviews. A total of 14 professional pilots flew several scenarios using the evaluated display to plan route changes free of weather conflict. Results: The display exhibits the potential to shift weather management from a tactical (5–10 minutes) to a strategic level (up to 1h earlier than today). Cluttering due to multiple overlapping weather areas was the main usability deficiency. Mode error could occur due to poor indication of weather hazard status, and when using the proposed display in less modern airspaces than Europe and US. Value: These findings are relevant for human factors and safety specialists and researchers involved in the development, evaluation, purchase and certification of aviation weather displays.

The management of safety critical operations cannot be left to the initiative of those individuals directly in contact with the production processes. Society as a whole has a role. This paper explores the interface between societal components having a direct active role in the “safety debate†. The reference domain is air traffic management and the interface is among air traffic controllers and pilots – as directly involved in the management of the air traffic – and two agencies, the NTSB (responsible for safety investigation after an accident) and FAA (responsible for regulating, upgrading and training of the workforce). Recent debates in safety management highlight that safe practice is a control problem: the result of effective hierarchical transmissions of safety constraints and making the boundaries of acceptable performance visible. This work analyzes how safety constraints related to an alarm system are represented, transmitted and interpreted by several parties – all committed to safety of operations in air traffic management. A “miscalibration†pattern has emerged where the tendency to ignore the alarm was initially addressed at higher hierarchical levels in relation to alarm design, and only in 2006 was addressed in relation to the core issue of nuisance or false alerts (FA).

Automation brings the potential for safety and capacity improvements in virtually any domain. However, such potential, is often compromised by those unintended and undesirable effects resulting from the interaction of automation with operational practices. This study inquires into the organizational and inter-organizational precursors to such effects in safety critical domains. While drawing on organizational safety literature, the study consists of an interpretive case centered on an alarm system from the Air Traffic Management domain. The history and adoption of the alarm have been investigated within the European Air Traffic Management System through the historical ethnographic method. Findings indicated that the main organizational precursors to problematic set up of the alarm included: (i) a tendency to frame implementation as an engineering routine project rather than an innovative safety effort; (ii) a commitment to implementation without an assessment of the organizational capability to implement the alarm; (iii) flawed service provider-software vendor integration; (iv) underspecified international standards. Implications for policy makers and managers of automation programmes are discussed.

The management of safety critical operations cannot be left to the initiative of those individuals directly in contact with the production processes. Society as a whole has a role. This paper explores the interface between societal components having a direct active role in the “safety debate”. The reference domain is air traffic management and the interface is among air traffic controllers and pilots – as directly involved in the management of the air traffic – and two agencies, the NTSB (responsible for safety investigation after an accident) and FAA (responsible for regulating, upgrading and training of the workforce). Recent debates in safety management highlight that safe practice is a control problem: the result of effective hierarchical transmissions of safety constraints and making the boundaries of acceptable performance visible. This work analyzes how safety constraints related to an alarm system are represented, transmitted and interpreted by several parties – all committed to safety of operations in air traffic management. A “miscalibration” pattern has emerged where the tendency to ignore the alarm was initially addressed at higher hierarchical levels in relation to alarm design, and only in 2006 was addressed in relation to the core issue of nuisance or false alerts (FA).

Motivation - Automation can fail to deliver the target safety or productivity benefit as intended by those managers and designers advocating its introduction. In a safety critical domain this problem is of significance not only because the unexpected effects of automation might prevent its widespread usage but also because they might turn out to be a contributor to incident and accidents. Originality/value - Research on failures of automation to deliver the intended benefit has focused mainly on human automation interaction. This PhD research plan aims at characterizing decisions - taken under productive pressure - for those involved in the automation development process, to identify where and when the initial intention the automation is supposed to deliver can drift from the initial idea. Expected Finding - The objective is to develop Anti-Drift Principles to identify and compensate proactively for possible sources of drift in the development of new automation. Research Approach - The research is based on case study and is currently entering Year 2.

This paper describes a doctoral research plan on collaborative practices in ATC. The research is in its early phase and intends to investigate ATC collaborative practices under the Target Time of Arrival Project currently under development at EUROCONTROL. Expected outcome will fall in the area of display design and/or validation. Current efforts are allocated to a review of theories and models that characterize human activities in relation to the context. Such review will inform later data collection and design phases. Keywords-component: human factors; collaborative work; distributed team work; target time of arrival (TTA) concept.

User-Centred Design is extremely useful for improving existing tasks and technologies, however it is less useful for innovation. This paper documents User-Centred Innovation and how it was implemented in the Air Traffic Control domain. Keywords-User-Centred Innovation, Air Traffic Control, Augmented Reality

Motivation -- Investigating the application of a 3D display concept on previously identified safety critical air traffic control scenarios. Research approach -- Small scale human in the loop simulation followed by qualitative in depth interview to understand when, why, and how the 3D information was used. Findings/Design -- Qualitative results confirmed the findings from the previous field study by showing that 3D representation promises to be an effective aid with respect to certain tasks, i.e., to deepen local tactical understanding of traffic situation and collect feedback on implemented course of action. At the same time operational viability of 3D can be undermined by problems related to interface management. Research limitations/Implications -- Results are qualitative based on a small sample. Originality/Value -- The approach taken -- human in the loop simulation -- makes the results significant for the ATC domain. Second a novel sketching techniques has been used to investigate and report on operators' problem. Take away message -- Affordances of 3D visualization can match the demand of the ATC task.

In this paper we present a case study of how design sketching can be used as a technique for exploring and creating a common understanding between users, designers and software developers, of the representation design requirements for supporting spatial-temporal reasoning in Air Traffic Control (ATC). The safe and expeditious control of aircraft requires the ATC controller to think in terms of 3D air space, and also plan ahead in time. We refer to this mental process as spatial-temporal reasoning. ATC is a 4D (3D plus time) problem but is currently supported by 2D tools such as the Plan Position Indicator-type radar displays that are seen in ATC centres. This requires the air traffic controllers to construct mental models of the air traffic situation to ensure safe vertical and horizontal separations between moving aircraft, and also expedite traffic flow. These objectives require prediction of traffic patterns and potential bottlenecks. To explain how we used design sketching, we report on the Task Analysis of an exemplar ATC task, and the characterisation of this task in spatial-temporal terms, and how the Ecological Interface Design principle of visualisation of constraints was applied to guide the development of the 4D visual form of the representation design.

In this paper we present research into the development of display visualizations to support spatial-temporal reasoning in real-time air traffic control tasks. We refer to such displays as 4D displays, incorporating both visualizations of 3D space and time. This work is based on ethnographic observation studies, contextual inquiry-type studies, as well as in-depth cognitive task analyses, of air traffic controllers in two different ATC domains: a tower control room and a terminal area control centre. Guided by human factors principles, we identified a number of visualization display requirements and a framework for considering the ATC controller's spatial-temporal reasoning needs. We then applied an iterative approach to the design of candidate visualization prototypes, to demonstrate how temporal decision requirements can be included in spatial representations, and how such 4D spatial-temporal representations can be embedded within the familiar 2D Plan Picture Indicator type of radar display. The designs were guided by human factors principles such as Ecological Interface Design.

In this paper we present a framework for considering the design of information visualisations intended to support 4D or spatial-temporal reasoning in Air Traffic Control. The Spatial-Temporal Framework was developed based on a cognitive task analysis of approach controllers. This work was conducted as part of a to develop a novel 4D interface for a possible future ATC system. A 4D interface is one that incorporates the visualisation of 3D space and time. The framework allows us to identify the spatial properties of a tactical ATC situation: objects, constraints and relationships; and how they are affected by the temporal attributes of the past, present, projected and intended actions. It is envisaged that this framework can provide guidance for our consideration and analytic assessment of new visualisation designs for a 4D interface.