Using tool support to enable a more flexible deployment of Air Traffic Controllers to Sectors

Air traffic controllers are highly-trained specialists, who hold and regularly maintain an appropriate medical certificate, an air traffic control license including one or more ratings and rating endorsements, and one or more unit endorsements. Especially the unit endorsements determine which air traffic controller is allowed to work at own responsibility in which airspace, sector or sector group. The fixed allocation of air traffic controllers to distinct airspaces substantially limits the flexibility of air traffic controller deployment to sectors, and produces a lot of personnel and / or training costs. An air navigation service provider can either choose to employ and train a higher number of air traffic controllers to ensure the availability of sufficient personnel with the right endorsements to always be able to man all the needed sectors, or within some limits to additionally train already employed air traffic controllers to hold and maintain more endorsements for more sectors or sector groups. The only possibility to obtain an additional unit endorsement today is to complete an on-the-job training on the considered sector / sector group, while being supervised by an on-the-job-training instructor. During this training, the air traffic controllers gets full salary but is not working at own responsibility, and is therefore not contributing to the overall productivity of the Air Navigation Service Provider. To reduce personnel and training costs again, the possibilities of a more flexible air traffic controller deployment has been a research topic within SESARs research programme from 2016 on. In the SESAR solution PJ.33-W3-01a, in strong collaboration with PJ.10-73 IFAV, several strategies for a more flexible air traffic controller deployment were developed. One of these strategies investigated the possibilities and limits of using tool support and adjusted procedures to reduce the time spent in on-the-job training, and to reduce the requirements for maintaining the obtained endorsement. Several support tools of different categories, which are further explained in this paper, were developed for this purpose, and a selection of them was build and validated in a real-time simulation campaign with operational air traffic controllers at the Air Traffic Management and Operations Simulator of the German Aerospace Centre. Beside several quantitative assessments regarding air traffic controller performance, comprehensive qualitative feedback was collected about the potential of this strategy as such, about the impact on air traffic controller operations as well as on training and endorsement practices, and the need for adjusting regulations. This paper will give basic information about the context of the research work, and will provide deeper insights in the overall strategy of using technical enablers to shorten the on-the-job training time and to improve the flexibility of air traffic controller deployment. It will further introduce selected tool concepts and will close with a summary of the lessons learned from the validation campaign.