Controller Use of a Block Occupancy-Based Surface Surveillance Display for Surface Management

Advanced surface surveillance capabilities cannot be economically justified at small and medium airports, though these airports continue to suffer from runway incursions. A block occupancy-based surface surveillance approach, in which runways and taxiways are divided into blocks and the occupancy of a block is displayed to the controller, may provide a low cost solution to these airports. A medium fidelity simulation was conducted to examine controller situation awareness, workload, and aircraft identification performance with the use of the block occupancy display. Results indicate that the presence of the display improves controller detection of safety critical runway events. However, controllers indicate that associating occupied blocks with aircraft identification is burdensome.