ABSTRACT
Introduction This chapter reviews a program of activities that took place between September 1996 and March 2000 in the Human Factors Unit for National Air Traffic Services (NATS), the main ATM service provider in the UK. The origins of the Human Factors Unit and the program are briefly summarized, and then ten brief case studies are outlined showing the types of impacts the program achieved. There is then a brief summary of the impacts, their cost-effectiveness, and the sustainability of the Human Factors initiative. Disclaimer: The author was formerly head of Human Factors, Air Traffic Management Development Centre, National Air Traffic Services, Bournemouth, Dorset, UK. The opinions in this chapter are those of the author alone, and do not necessarily reflect those of his employers (past or present). Events Leading to the Development of the Program For some years prior to the program described in this chapter, Human Factors work had been carried out both by NATS itself and by its then ‘parent’ organization, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA: e.g. see Hopkin, 1995). There had also been a Human Factors presence at the ATMDC (Air Traffic Management Development Centre), in particular because the ATMDC was the place where many large-scale real-time simulations were carried out, with up to 30 controllers for three weeks per simulation (e.g. simulating new sector designs, new interfaces, etc.). Such simulations required a large amount of Human Factors support, in terms of experimental design, and development and analysis of controller measures (mainly subjective measures such as questionnaires and workload assessment). Additionally, some Human Factors work was carried out by contractors on a range of projects, including some support for the developing New En-Route Centre (NERC) at Swanwick, which although scheduled for 1998/9, was finally to go operational in 2002. NATS itself was at the time (and remains today) the major
service provider for the UK. Its controllers were based at a number of UK airports (e.g. London Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham, Manchester, etc.), and principally were in two main centers in London and Prestwick, handling all the En-route traffic in the UK region. In Prestwick, the controllers also handled the Northern and midEuropean oceanic traffic to and from the United States, up to a point mid-way in the Atlantic (15 degrees west).
