Situation Awareness, Workload, and Performance in Midterm Nextgen: Effect of Dynamic Variations in Aircraft Equipage Levels

NextGen changes in air traffic management promise to bring many benefits to the current airspace system, but these changes must be evaluated for their impact on mid-term air traffic management in which mixed-equipage is certain. We examined mixed equipage environments in which the equipage levels changed over the course of the scenario to reflect changes in sector characteristic over the course of a day or controller’s work shift. Six retired ATCs managed mixed-equipage traffic that either began with low levels of NextGen equipped aircraft and increased midway through the scenario or vice-versa. These were compared to a scenario in which the equipage mix was held constant. ATC performance, workload and situation awareness were affected differently by these scenarios