Response: Is Paper Safer? The Role of Paper Flight Strips in Air Traffic Control

Summary:

The paper discusses the current (on the date of publication) system employed in Air Traffic Controls which is the use of Paper Strips containing a record of the flight plan filed by the pilot and authorized by the control center. The reason behind this is to find a way of easily transitioning from a dated system to a much modern system without sacrificing safety. This so far seems to have been elusive and attempts on automation have failed.

The paper then goes over three groups of people who have tried to propose solutions to gather preliminary insights.

Software Engineers: Seemed to have relied too much on standard rules and ignored the users (flight controllers). They reduced the cooperative nature of the work and focused on designing for discrete roles rather than overlapping activities. They want to abolish paper strips.

Cognitive Ergonomists: Takes human-factors into account but described air traffic control as a series of cognitive tasks with goals and sub-goals, and shared the same sentiments as the engineers.

Sociologists: Takes interest in the social and historical context of the work. They claim that flight strips, symbolizing actual flights as tangible objects, are essential to the work. However, they have little say into the design of new systems and are often over looked.

Looking at the sociologists’ view that flight strips are important, they designed two ethnographic studies:

The first one was performed at a French control center, Athis Mons, which ran for four months. They observed and interviewed the controllers about how they performed their tasks involving the paper strips. They also recorded footages of the work flow. They observed how controllers used strips and other technologies, e.g. the radar. From their observation, they found that the Radar and Flight strips complemented each other. The physicality that the paper strips give helps extensively in the management of activities by providing the controllers temporal and spatial frameworks and tactile cues. It also accommodates for differences in individuals which they claim to be safer.

The second study happened in other control rooms in France and Netherlands ranging from several hours to two days in some. They examined the difference and similarities between the control centers with the focus on the use of flight strips. Differences include hierarchies and interactions between controllers.

The paper then discussed the implications for possible new systems that focus on safety. Improving productivity is important, but safety should remain as the primary concern. They proposed the use of augmented reality between the strips and the computer. This will retain the current advantages flight strips have but also provide the benefits of a computer.

Reflection:

I thought the paper focused greatly about the role of flight paper strips in the work of air traffic controllers so much that I almost forgot that the paper is also asking about “is [it] safer?” The paper also did not really answer the question but rather proposed implications based on tests performed on methods involving only strips. This is ok since they could not really compare it with a different system that has not yet been implemented. However, I believe they could have gone with it in the title. That said, I believe the paper discussed the role of flight paper strips in air traffic control, and their studies were quite well done. It gave insight about the collaborative work that happens within the control centers that led to their conclusion. Moreover, the proposed solution of augmented reality seems really interesting and promising.