How the Tower Air Traffic Controller Workload Influences the Capacity in a Complex Three-Runway Airport

Paola Di Mascio, Riccardo Carrara, Luca Frasacco, Eleonora Luciano, Andrea Ponziani and Laura Moretti
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Paola Di Mascio: Department of Civil, Constructional and Environmental Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome, 00184 Rome, Italy
Riccardo Carrara: Department of Civil, Constructional and Environmental Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome, 00184 Rome, Italy
Luca Frasacco: ENAV Ente Nazionale Assistenza al Volo-Italian Air Navigation Service Provider Via Salaria, 00138 Rome, Italy
Eleonora Luciano: ENAV Ente Nazionale Assistenza al Volo-Italian Air Navigation Service Provider Via Salaria, 00138 Rome, Italy
Andrea Ponziani: ENAV Ente Nazionale Assistenza al Volo-Italian Air Navigation Service Provider Via Salaria, 00138 Rome, Italy
Laura Moretti: Department of Civil, Constructional and Environmental Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome, 00184 Rome, Italy

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 6, 1-14

Abstract: Air traffic controllers aim to optimize 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 of data collection has been carried out from the radio frequency occupation. The results allowed us 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 the human component.

Keywords: airport capacity; fast time simulation; aircraft delay simulation models; pareto frontiers; workload; tower air traffic controller; air traffic controller’s capacity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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