Citation:
Peter Brooker, Air Traffic Control automation: for humans or people? Human Factors and Aerospace Safety 2005, vol 5(1) pp23-42
Abstract:
Are air traffic controllers humans or people? At first sight, this seems a very odd
question, given that ‘humans’ and ‘people’ are near-synonyms in the dictionary
and everyday usage. However, in research on air traffic control (ATC)
automation the phrase ‘human-centred’ is used to mean particular aspects of
people: for example, it does not usually address their motivations for embracing
change or cover organisational behaviour issues. The objective here is to try to
understand how the fact that air traffic controllers are people – particular kinds of
people – is likely to affect the introduction of automation. This examination takes
as an example a suite of computer assistance tools for en route ATC. How would
these tools need to change if the fact that controllers are ‘people’ is taken into
account?
