A sectorization model for air route traffic control centers

Abstract

Air traffic control teams are responsible for the safe and efficient control of air traffic through corresponding air sectors. When long term imbalances develop between a team's control capability and the level of control demanded by the sector traffic, inefficiencies develop in the control process. These inefficiencies are seen in sectors where traffic is delayed or rerouted due to overworked control teams, while other sectors have low levels of traffic and underutilized control teams. One technique for resolving these imbalances is to change the area of responsibility for the control team by changing the boundaries of their air sector. However, the determination of the appropriate sector boundary change for improving the situation is a qualitative question for Air Route Traffic Control Center officials.

This effort reviews the existing expressions for determining the level of controller workload and presents a decision support model for quantitatively evaluating alternative sector boundary changes. A user specified workload expression is separated into workload components and describes the level of controller workload for each sector in a sectored airspace. The model requires a graphical description of the initial sector arrangement, the values for the controller workload components and a description of the proposed boundary change. The changed sector arrangement is computed from this information and the model provides a description of the resulting air sectors and their associated values for the workload components. The result of the proposed boundary change is seen in the changed sector arrangement and the amount of change is determined by comparing the values of the workload components of the initial and changed sector arrangements. Each sector arrangement is described with a data file and numerical tables. The data file is used for plotting a two-dimensional representation of the sectored airspace. The tables quantify the values of the workload components for each air route in a sector at the sector, air route, and air route section levels. In this manner, the model provides a more objective approach for officials to balance sector workloads.