NEAR Research

NEAR has become more involved in development of detailed objective metrics for quantification of simulations and for statistical analyses of ATM data.

"You cannot change what you cannot measure."

The new controller and pilot Decision Support Tools and procedures are changing the way the human works and interacts with the systems often making the human an 'exception manager'. Yet often the only metrics used to assess their operation are based on subjective questionnaires to the humans and a 'management by control' paradigm. It has been shown with new Human Factors metrics for assessment of driving using hands free phones, that subjective judgments are very unreliable and usually over optimistic.

Research areas in metrics include:

• Metrics for analyzing the efficiency (and inefficiencies) in the NAS System and for forecasting delays and acceptance rates, based on data in the data-warehouse
• Metrics to measure the safety, capacity and efficiency of ATM systems when they are run in simulations both fast and real time
• Development of a suite of objective metrics-tools that will baseline and measure the cognitive workload on each 'cognitive channel' for controllers and pilots.
• Development and marketing of the Performance Usability Measurement for ATM (PUMA) tool for measuring the human workload. In conjunction with UK National Air Traffic Services Ltd

For more information on projects in this category, please click here.