Towards a Paperless Air Traffic Control Tower

A prototype of an Electronic Flight Strip (EFS) system for air traffic controllers in the tower was developed in a participatory design process with rapid prototyping. The process which included five intermediate part task evaluations resulted in a prototype in which the existing working methods could be maintained. During a whole task evaluation of the EFS system in a tower simulator the usability of the EFS system was evaluated as well as the impact of the EFS system on strip hand-over, the controllers' mental picture and head-down time. It revealed that controllers were able to handle peak traffic with EFS after just 20 minutes of familiarization. Furthermore, the hand-over of traffic with EFSs was better supported according to the controllers. Nevertheless incoming strips were left unnoticed longer with EFSs and head-down time increased. For these reasons the support of the controllers' mental picture was rated slightly lower with EFSs. With small improvements and more familiarization the concept is considered ready for implementation.