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Influence of tower air traffic controller workload and airport layout on airport capacity
Journal of Airport Management,
15
(4),
408-423
(2021)
Abstract
Air traffic control’s aim is to optimise airport capacity, that is, to increase the number of aircraft movements per hour maintaining a limited delay. There are several definitions of capacity, which depend on the considered airport element. This study focused on the development of a method that allows evaluating the impact of tower air traffic controllers’ workload on airport capacity. It adapts a model for the workload of sector controllers designed by Eurocontrol to tower controllers and tests it on a heavily busy international airport. In order to collect controllers’ working times, a campaign on data research has been carried out from which it was possible to extrapolate the hourly percentage of work of the various tower controllers using a fast-time simulation software. By imposing an hourly working threshold on tower air traffic controllers, it was possible to obtain a maximum number of manageable aircraft, which was compared with the airside capacity of the airport. The results show that the maximum traffic manageable from the airside would produce unacceptable workload for tower controllers, highlighting the link between airport capacity and human component.
Keywords: airport capacity; fast-time simulation; aircraft delay simulation models; Pareto frontiers; workload; tower air traffic controller; air traffic controller’s capacity
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Paola Di Mascio is Associate Professor of Road, Railways and Airports at the Sapienza University of Rome, at DICEA — Department of Civil, Building and Environmental Engineering since 1998. Paolo’s teaching activity includes ‘Airport Infrastructures’ for Civil Engineering and Aeronautic Engineering master degree and ‘Transport Infrastructures’ for Transport Engineering System master degree. She is a coordinator of PhD course ‘Infrastructures and Transportation’, at the Sapienza University of Rome. She is involved in several national and international researches on pedestrian mobility, road safety, airport safety, design, construction and maintenance of roads and airport. Paolo is author of more than 150 papers on conference proceedings and international and national reviews.
Riccardo Carrara is a Civil Engineer graduated at Sapienza University of Rome. During the internship period for his degree at ENAV SpA (the Italian ANSP), he has worked on airport capacity studies using highly specific tools. He currently works as analyst in the infrastructure development and planning department of Aeroporti di Roma (ADR).
Luca Frasacco is an Air Traffic Control Officer of the Italian Air Navigation Service Provider (ENAV), with over 20 years of operational experience as Air Traffic Controller first in the military and civilian airports and then in Italian Area Control Centers. Since 2003, he has been Head of the ENAV spa Fast Time Team.
Eleonora Luciano is an Air Traffic Management Engineer of the Italian air navigation service provider (ENAV), with over 16 years of experience in the Aviation market specialising in Airport Capacity enhancement; her experience spans major Italian and worldwide airports. Eleonora has used fast-time simulation and other analysis tools since 2003. She has experience in project and technical management, business development, strategic planning, technology innovation, capability building initiatives and other performance enhancements processes. Her experience includes working with multidisciplinary and multi-cultural project teams and international customers/organizations and possesses excellent analytic, organisational and realisation skills developed in challenging working environments where service safety and reliability are the main business drivers. Her broad portfolio of competencies includes an advanced academic education in aeronautical domains and management.
Andrea Ponziani is head of the Airport Enhanced Solutions structure ENAV SpA. He has been an air traffic controller operating for 23 years first in Milan Linate and then in Rome Fiumicino. During the operational activity, he has also licensed as on-the-job training instructor (OJTI) and class teacher in ab initio and advanced courses at ENAV Academy for Italian and international air traffic controllers. He has developed many years of experience in airport operations, being also project leader in national and international studies, improvements and implementations for different airports, managing operations, training and simulation models
Laura Moretti in Infrastructure and Transportation, is Researcher of Construction of Road, Railways and Airports at Sapienza University of Rome in the Department of Civil, Building and Environmental Engineering. Her teaching activities include ‘Safety of road works’ for the Civil Engineering and Safety Engineering Master’s degree, ‘Design of transportation during emergency’ for the Safety Engineering Master’s degree, ‘Civil infrastructures’ for Techniques for the Surveyor for the Construction and Land bachelor’s degree, ‘Concrete pavements’ for the Construction and Management of Airports second level master’s degree. She is involved in several national research projcts on life cycle assessment, green public procurement, airport safety, environmental impact, design, construction and maintenance of roads and airport. She is the author of more than 60 articles on conference proceedings and international journals; she has also carried out international and national reviews. She is a member of the reviewer board of Materials and currently is guest editor of the special issue ‘Toward Sustainability: Airport Risk Assessment’ in the journal Sustainability. She is also a member of the scientific committees for several scientific conferences.
