Overview
The European Commission launched a new paradigm shift 'collaborative decision-making in a complete air and airport environment, including innovative research to increase the efficiency of air transport service provision' and wanted it to be applied across the European Commission's Sixth Framework (FP6) Ait Traffic Management (ATM) projects. This implied the co-ordination of the processes and methodologies and concerned the following research areas in FP6:
- co-operative ATM;
- advanced airborne system applications;
- reduced separation minima;
- airport efficiency;
- advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System;
- advanced approach and landing concepts;
- innovative ATM research.
CAATS intended to gather, expand and refine the knowledge produced by the FP6 projects in these areas (avoiding overlapping and gaps) and in other relevant projects (e.g. FP5, Eurocontrol). Knowledge was consolidated by a small team of focused experts and then disseminated on a broad scale. On the basis of all the information obtained in CAATS, best practice manuals were produced.
The main objective of the Cooperative Approach to Air Traffic Services (CAATS) was the coordination of processes and methodologies across ATM related projects of FP6in relation to Safety, Human Factors and Validation domains. The most significant output of CAATS was the achievement of a coordinated, cooperative European approach to ATM research and technical support in the mentioned domains.
The projects focused in the Safety, Human Factors and Validation research areas began on the basis of the knowledge that was achieved previously and all, in turn, produced new knowledge. The knowledge produced so far in previous projects has been only loosely coordinated. As the time for actual deployment of the new systems and applications approached, it became indispensable to take a coordinated approach to the knowledge produced across the EC's proposed research areas.
Best practice manuals were produced, to be used not only by EC projects but also by other interested stakeholders. The aim was to provide a coordinated approach by all FP6 projects to achieve the EC's paradigm shift. CAATS also identified issues not yet covered, recommending, achieving or coordinating further developments. CAATS improved the co-ordination and support amongst the projects in order to avoid disruptive and expensive overlapping.
The methodology used was collecting, collating, analysing and harmonising the knowledge produced by FP6 projects in the areas of Safety, Human Factors and Validation with the aim to identify best practices or gaps/needs for improvement.
A specialised team was assigned to each of these areas consisting of Team Members and Team Experts. Associated Measures Experts were also available to assist the members of the team in particular subjects.
Funding
Results
The main results obtained from the project were:
- The Validation Best Practices Manual contains best/good practices for the three areas considered in CAATS. The 'case' format is used to collate this information. Figure 6 shows the CAATS contribution to overall case based view.
- In the Validation domain, best practices in operational concept validation for all ATM R&D projects have formed the E-OCVM. The Joint Programme Board (JPB) in its meeting on 24 January 2005, required the application of E-OCVM and the use of Validation Data Repository (VDR) by all ATM related projects in particular within the collaboration between the EC and EUROCONTROL in the ATM Master Plan and also along the ACARE Strategic Research Agenda SRA-2.
- In the Safety domain, through a very active interaction with a number of target projects and safety experts, a long and rich lists of emerging good practices and needs for improvement for safety key elements in ATM were identified for performing the Safety Case.
- In the Human Factors domain, the Human Factors good practices collected in the Best Practices Manual constitute the most comprehensive and state-of-the-art approach to build the Human Factors Case.
- The Guide to a Comprehensive Incorporation of Validation in ATM R&D Projects, to provide support for effective management of the validation, safety and human factors activities as part of the overall ATM R&D project, by issuing clear and concise checklist guidelines.
- Dissemination activities have enabled active interaction with target projects through participation to the various CAATS workshops. The results to these activities have been:
- Increased awareness of the Best Practices Manual (in the areas of Validation, Human Factors and Safety) among EC´s and Eurocontrol projects.
- Gaps identified and recommendations issued to improve the Best Practices Manual.
CAATS has thus achieved its objectives by identifying and consolidating knowledge in these areas - making it state-of-the-art - and disseminated it to the relevant stakeholders.
Technical Implications
The main objective of the area Teams was to manage the knowledge produced in the specific domains, and to provide support to FP6 Projects on request.
The activities performed in the Work-packages are following:
- Knowledge audit, including knowledge both within and beyond the actual FP6 projects.
- Gap analysis and filling.
- Identification of best practices.
- Preparation and dissemination of best practices.
- Coordination of a feedback process.
- Evolution and maintenance of best practices.
- Support to users as requested.
The Safety Team reviewed safety objectives, safety regulations, safety management, safety levels and criteria, and safety assessment methodologies. Safety aspects for all phases of flight and airport movements, and at all stages in the development lifecycle of new air traffic operations were be covered.
The Human Factors Team focused mainly on two aspects: human/machine interaction principles, and stakeholder and acceptance issues of the new concepts and technologies. The Validation Team focused mainly on two aspects of the domain of Validation: generic Air Traffic Management (ATM) validation methodologies, and specific ATM system validation methodologies.
Policy implications
For Air Traffic Management, safety deserves attention from three different perspectives:
- Safety perception (e.g. by pilot, controller, passenger, human society, et cetera.). An ATM design that is perceived as being unsafe will not easily be accepted by the pilots and controllers involved. Fact is that their positive perception about the safety of an ATM design is a training and deployment critical requirement. By its very nature, however, safety perception is a subjective notion, and therefore insufficient to really guide the approval of safety-critical changes in ATM. Moreover, the safety perception by passengers and human society can not be identified on the basis of an ATM design.
- Dependability of a technical system (e.g. an automation support system, an aircraft navigation system, a satellite based communication system) stands for a collective term used to describe the availability performance and its influencing factors, reliability performance, maintainability performance and maintenance-support performance. Metrics for dependability elements have been widely studied in literature for technical systems and are in use e.g. by the JAA and EUROCONTROL.
- Accident risk, e.g. for 1st (crew), 2nd (passengers) and 3rd parties (external persons) in air transport. Accident risk metrics are commonly in use for human controlled safety-critical operations in chemical and nuclear industries, and in civil aviation. Two well known ICAO-adopted accident risk metrics are for an aircraft to collide either with another aircraft during en-route phase, or with fixed obstacles during landing. Risk may also be expressed in economic terms or societal risk.