Workload-based congestion prediction

□ FAA mission is to ensure the safe and efficient flow of traffic through the National Airspace System (NAS) □ In order to do this, the predicted amount of traffic desiring to use the airspace (demand) and capacity of the airspace are needed □ Demand can be largely determined from filed flight plans, but capacity is not as simple as it depends on — Number of aircraft — Services aircraft need — Amount of time to provide services □ MITRE has been researching the use of workload modeling to estimate the capacity of en route sectors and to identify congestion Developed a model that estimates post facto time-on-task workload for the en route radar controller and another for TRACON radar controller □ Sector is congested when workload near or above a specified threshold □ MITRE developed a predictive version of the en route workload model.