Operational Performance Analysis - Government
ATAC provides ATC Service Providers with a range of expert services to measure and analyze air traffic operational performance, ranging from metric development to large scale cost-benefit analyses.
ATAC’s Operational Performance Analysis expertise covers:
- Metric development and prototyping, where we analyze business and operational needs to define and prototype operational metrics and measurements.
- Development of data collection, processing and reporting tools to support the gathering of data needed for measurement and analysis, the processing of that data to compute measurements, and produce reports with actionable information.
- Operation and support of data collection, processing and reporting tools, including system installation, system operation, data archiving, user training, and report design.
- Analysis of operational data, ranging from small-scale trend analyses on specific metrics to large scale before and after analyses.
Metric Development and Prototyping
ATAC has been involved in the development and prototyping of a wide variety of metrics. Under the Performance Data Analysis and Reporting System (PDARS) program, ATAC supports the FAA Air Traffic Organization in the development of metrics to support the ATO’s Strategic Management Process. Metrics range from basic traffic counts to advanced multi-faceted metrics and include:
- Traffic counts for runways, airports and sectors
- Instantaneous sector counts, comparing aircraft density in sectors with sector capacity
- Trajectory Based Operations (TBO) analysis including TBFM/metering assessment and metric development
- Reroutes and Diversions, measuring the frequency and impact of in-flight modifications
- Miles in trail compliance, combining data from various sources to determine the effectiveness of traffic flow management initiatives
- Flight time, distance and delay
- Air route utilization, for example, to determine use of new RNAV and Q-routes
- Taxi-time, runway occupancy, and surface utilization
Development of Data Collection, Processing and Reporting Tools
Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) are under pressure to improve air traffic operational performance, not only to reduce cost and increase capacity, but also to reduce environmental impact from aircraft noise and emissions. ATAC’s SkyView and associated services are designed to assist service providers and operators alike in achieving such performance improvements. SkyView provides a comprehensive set of software tools for gathering aviation performance and supporting data, measuring and baselining operations, and helping to design, implement, and evaluate operational improvements. SkyView contains configurable data collection, analysis, reporting, and management modules that can be tailored to your needs. SkyView can be adapted for any suitable air traffic data source, ASCII or binary, socket-based (TCP/IP, UDP) or file based.
Operation and Support
Under contract with the FAA, ATAC operates the PDARS system and provides support to PDARS users. ATAC’s services include system installation (networks, hardware and software), system maintenance, system operation and monitoring, user training, and report development. ATAC operates the PDARS data center which handles over 65 data feeds and contains more than 70,000 facility-days of traffic operations in the archive.
Analysis of Operational Data
ATAC has supported a wide variety of operational analysis studies to support impact assessment, cost/benefit analysis, airspace optimization and environmental impact analysis. Examples include:
- Counting traffic for runways, airports and sectors
- Quantifying the effect on aircraft operations associated with the use of the new runway configurations
- Assessing the benefits of Performance Based Navigation (PBN) procedure rollout throughout the NAS, including the emergence of Area Navigation (RNAV) and Required
- Navigation Performance (RNP) equipped aircraft
- Improving the traffic flow by measuring and analyzing differences in the traffic flows before and after an Arrival Enhancement Procedure (AEP) was put in place.
- Providing a detailed analysis of the impact of FAA’s Domestic Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (DRVSM)
