Design and Evaluation Study of Visual Analytics Decision Support Tools in Air Traffic Control

Operators in air traffic control facing time- and safety-critical situations call for efficient, reliable and robust real-time processing and interpretation of complex data. Automation support tools aid controllers in these processes to prevent separation losses between aircraft. Issues of current support tools include limited 'what-if' and 'what-else' probe functionalities in relation to vertical solutions. This work presents the design and evaluation of two visual analytics interfaces that promote contextual awareness and support 'what-if' and 'what-else' probes in the spatio-temporal domain aiming to improve information integration and support controllers in prioritising conflict resolution. Both interfaces visualize vertical solution spaces against a time-altitude graph. The main contributions of this paper are: (a) the presentation of two interfaces for supporting conflict solving; (b) the novel representation of how vertical information and aircraft rate of climb and descent affect conflicts and (c) an evaluation and comparison of the interfaces with a traditional air traffic control support system. The evaluation study was performed with domain experts to compare the effects of visualization concepts on operator engagement in processing solutions suggested by the tools. Results show that the visualizations support operators' ability to understand and resolve conflicts. Based on the results, general design guidelines for time-critical domains are proposed.