Hold the Phone: Automating Telephone Coordination in Traffic Flow Management

Air Traffic Flow Management is a complex, dynamic domain. Until recently, Federal Aviation Administration Traffic Managers were required to coordinate the implementation of traffic management initiatives through a series of telephone calls. In this paper we describe the development of an automated process, Electronic Coordination, to replace the majority of those calls. We adopted a user-centered multidisciplinary design team methodology to develop the concept and address design challenges. User validation and testing of the concept were integrated into the process and occurred iteratively throughout development. Post deployment user feedback and lessons learned are also discussed.