Traffic Management Advisor

Abstract

The Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) is part of the FAA’s Free Flight program which has been on going for the past 12 years in an attempt to enable controllers the means in which to manage airspace and reduce delays at airports safely and more efficiently. It uses flight plan information along with environmental concerns to aide controllers in sequencing arrivals at airports and makes recommendations for traffic patterns to aide in undue congestion. The TMA has boosted efficiency of the air traffic controllers and helped in fuel efficiency and safety for the airlines, passengers and crews.

The Concept of the Traffic Management Advisor

The Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) is used to aide the air traffic controllers and coordinators through

graphical map, which display alerts, when dealing with aircraft when they are on the outer meter, meter fixed, final approach and threshold for landing at an airport. The TMA schedules and sequences times for their orbits and landings at airports which take a lot of the stress and calculations away from the controllers. It also schedules their landing runways for the aircraft which helps with separation and safety of the aircraft. It does this by computing their speed and approach angles which can be seen on a live Doppler type of screen.

The TMA system relies on eight processes which include the following: 1) the communications manager which shares information between its databases, 2) the radar daemon which has a link between the TMA and the controllers computer, 3) the weather daemon which uses weather information from the national weather service, 4) the timeline graphical user interface which receives and uses information from the traffic management controllers computer, 5) the route analyzer which decides which route the aircraft will use, 6) the planview graphical user interface which uses input from the controllers and displays the information, 7) the trajectory synthesizer which determines the estimated time of arrival and the descent profile of the aircraft, and 8) the dynamic planner which determines the runway and the sequences of the other incoming traffic.

The TMA computes the aircraft

schedule and sequencing between 40 and 200 miles from the airport, even before they have reached the airports controlled airspace. All of this information comes from the aircraft

flight plan and the TMA has the ability to adjust runway assignments and the sequencing of the aircraft also due to environmental conditions or in response to the input by the controllers.

The TMA uses an a graphic display which shows all aircraft within its sector and each one can even be tagged with all of its appropriate information such as flight number, type, weight class, where it is fixed at the moment and the runway that it will use upon landing. It shows all of aircraft

information in 10 minute intervals from the time that they enter the tracking zone of the airport. This can be used by the controller to re-sequence aircraft in case there are some critical changes or emergencies that have evolved. The TMA uses multiple types of graphs and overlays that can be used to ensure that the airports will not back up or flights become delayed longer than the minimum required time to re-sequence the arriving aircraft according to the airports acceptance flow rate (CTAS, 2005).

Initial History of the TMA

The initial trial and assessment of the first TMA was conducted in 1993 at the Denver Airport. The main goals were to assess how the TMA could manage and distribute the air traffic load and change the airport acceptance rate to be more effective. The initial trial showed its capabilities that could support its users. It was found that the TMA could handle all it was designed for but the need to provide the controllers with more hands on use was evident. The users were then asked about each of the interfaces within the TMA and to assess their feasibility by taking a written assessment and answering yes or no to each area. There were some changes that needed to be made to the TMA which included display, color coding and symbology that would match the interfaces already used by the controllers (Kelly Harwood and Beverly Sanford, 1993).

The next testing of the system occurred in 1996 at the Fort Worth Airport. This evaluation encompassed all shifts as well as times of inclement weather. The data collected showed a one to two minute delay reduction period during the rush hours of traffic. The TMA surpassed all that was hoped for in an air traffic management system and gave controllers a great tool to aide them in