Exploring topics and trends in Chinese ATC incident reports using a domain-knowledge driven topic model

The primary objective of this study is to discover hidden topics and trends from historical ATC incident reports. A novel domain-knowledge driven topic (DDT) model is proposed to explore the embedded patterns and hidden connections in ATC incident reports. Seventeen-year ATC incident records are collected from Local Air Traffic Management Branch of Civil Aviation Administration of China to illustrate the procedure. First, a total of twenty topics are identified from the collected reports, including aircraft-flight-operation related topics, crew-activities related topics, airspace-control-transfer related topics and others. Then, the topic evolution trend over years is explored, which identifies four hot topics and four cold topics over the study period. The results reveal that in general the contributing factors of ATC incidents are gradually shifting from external factors (e.g., radar equipment or aircraft components) to human related factors (e.g., instruction communication or handover of airspace control) due to the improved quality of communication equipment and some adjustments of ATC rules over the past two decades. Finally, the topic evolution analyses across different ATC areas and flight phases are further conducted. The findings indicate that the potential causes of ATC incidents are different across various ATC areas and flight phases due to the variation in geographical environment and local policies. The results of this research can help local ATC authorities conduct efficient safety performance assessment, implement proactive countermeasures for specific areas to enhance air traffic safety, and provide aviation authorities with insightful suggestions for ATC process optimization and design.