Air Traffic Management Concept Baseline Definition - The Boeing ...

To cope with this uncertainty, the modernization must continue to be driven by a clear
statement of system mission and goals, and guided by an operational concept that strives
to achieve those goals.
1.2 Context
This work was performed with knowledge of a variety of related completed or ongoing
efforts. The primary related activities were the following:
• FAA Air Traffic Operational Concept Definition team, formed in January 1997, and
chartered with defining a concept for a target completion date of 2005.
• RTCA Task Force 3, whose Free Flight Report, published in 1995, along with
ongoing RTCA Free Flight follow-on work, includes the recent definition of an
operational concept for users of the NAS.
• FAA NAS Architecture Working Group had published Version 1.5 and 2.0 of the
architecture through 2012 when the team started work, and industry comments on it
had been published as V2.5. Some preliminary data on V3.0 was made available to the
team, but considerable uncertainty still remains.
• The Flight 2000 initiative was launched in early 1997, and the team kept up-to-date on
the program as much as possible. Again, uncertainty remains regarding program
funding and details of the final program plan.
• Eurocontrol had published its European Air Traffic Management System (EATMS)
Operational Concept V1.0, and the team had a number of other sources of information
available to keep abreast of developments in Europe. The pending changes in the
Eurocontrol charter seem likely to lead to an increased emphasis within the
organization on capacity issues in Europe’s terminal areas, and thus the U.S. and
European ATM concepts may see more convergence in the near future.
During this period the FAA budget constraints have continued to hamper the architecture
definition efforts. This, along with substantial difficulties in FAA’s recent system
development and procurement efforts produce considerable volatility in the NAS
modernization plan. Some of these difficulties can be traced to a lack of a clear business
case for most of the current modernization initiatives, and a lack of consensus among
users on many of the implementation details.
1.3 Scope
The operational concept presented here is aimed at driving research to support preliminary
design decisions for the NAS, which will produce top level technical and human factors
requirements to achieve the system mission. Detailed concept validation research must
then be performed, where technology and human factors are combined with economic
evaluation of concept components to fully define the operational concept and architecture.
Thus, the concept presented here, although well supported by rationale as to what might
be feasible in the next two decades, must be subjected to critical analysis and validation.
This process will inevitably lead to concept refinement, perhaps enabled by currently
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