Towards a Multi-sector cooperation in Air-Traffic Control supported by a Meta- Common Workspace

For several years, the need for air traffic control has been continuously increasing. In order to maintain aircraft safety, different support tools have been built and assessed by our laboratory. The professional controllers who have tested these tools have made various criticisms. Our conviction is that it is necessary to design a more cooperative tool that would allow “true team work” to be established between air traffic controllers and their support tools, by making the support tool part of the team rather than a substitute for air traffic controllers. This paper presents a new support tool based on the delegation of tasks and a common workspace. The support tools’ assessments with professional controllers have highlighted a workload decrease due to the delegation and the sharing of information. In order to improve the support system, it is necessary to extend the common workspace to the adjacent sector of control. 1 Benoît Guiost works now for Eurisco International, 23 avenue Edouard Belin, BP 44013, 31028 Toulouse Cedex 4; [email protected]