ROUTE AVAILABILTY PLANNING TOOL EVALUATION VIZUALIZATIONS FOR THE NEW YORK AND CHICAGO DEPARTURE FLOWS

摘要

When operationally significant weather affects a region of the National Airspace System (NAS) a Severe Weather Avoidance Program (SWAP) is initiated for that region. Each SWAP event is a unique mix of demand, weather conditions, traffic flow management (TFM) initiatives and traffic movement. On the day following a SWAP, the SWAP events are reviewed by FAA and airline representatives as part of the daily planning teleconference, and the TFM initiatives used are evaluated to understand their impact on the traffic flows, benefits, and disadvantages. Due to the complexity of the situation various exploratory visualizations were designed in order to evaluate aspects of the aviation environment and the responsive actions of the NAS during outbreaks of convective weather as well as to gain insights on the interaction of weather and traffic operations. From these visualizations, analyses and metrics were developed that could be used to objectively evaluate the effectiveness of TMIs. This paper will present three visualizations that have directly resulted in the development of analyses for TMIs or lead to insights into air traffic operations.