Exploring benefits of a separation assessment tool to achieve level 3 SA for speed advisories

Future air traffic management systems may lead to a shift from the state based operation that is used today to a trajectory based operation. As a result, the error between where the aircraft will actually be and is computed to be becomes independent of look-ahead time. This might lead to a situation where the time to conflict is long enough so that the control margin of a speed change will be sufficient to solve the conflict. Solving the conflict by only changing speeds is an advantage in operations where a trajectory change is not desirable. A tool could generate a speed advisory to solve the conflict, however the solution is a balance between the extra separation needed and the available control margin. If the controller has enough insight in the separation and the effect of a speed change, the controller has the final decision in this balance. An experiment showed that without explicit suFuture Air Traffic Management systems may lead to a shift from the state based operation that is used today to a trajectory based operation. As a result, the error between where the aircraft will actually be and is computed to be becomes independent of look-ahead time. This might lead to a situation where the time to conflict is long enough so that the control margin of a speed change will be sufficient to solve the conflict. Solving the conflict by only changing speeds is an advantage in operations where a trajectory change is not desirable. A tool could generate a speed advisory to solve the conflict, however the solution is a balance between the extra separation needed and the available control margin. If the controller has enough insight in the separation and the effect of a speed change, the controller has the final decision in this balance. An experiment showed that without explicit support that provides preview on the impact of speed changes on separation, controllers do not have enough insight in the separation and speed margins to generate a valid solution by only changi- ng speed. To support the air traffic controller a new tool was developed to make the speed margins more explicit.pport that provides preview on the impact of speed changes on separation, controllers do not have enough insight in the separation and speed margins to generate a valid solution by only changing speed. To support the air traffic controller a new tool was developed to make the speed margins more explicit.