ATC-Monitoring When One Controller Operates Two Airports: Research for Remote Tower Centres

The paper aims at understanding crucial variables that influence the control of visual attention of tower controllers. Novel concepts for aerodrome control of regional airports consider to remotely control two or more airports at a time from one remote center. A simulation experiment was set up where 12 professional tower controllers operated parallel traffic of two airports. Eye gaze recording and questionnaires were used. Two feedback loops are considered to influence the controllers monitoring behavior: The accessibility of the information of the “far-view” and controller strategies. The results show that both variables have a crucial influence on how often the controller updates the information of one airport. This implies that monitoring performance depends on system design and behavioral strategies. These dependencies can be applied to the design of novel ATC-workplaces