Use of Trajectory Option Sets to Support Collaborative Constraint Propagation

Air traffic flow management is supported by a highly distributed work system in which airline dispatchers and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) traffic managers must coordinate. To support asynchronous coordination between a dispatcher and a traffic manager, the FAA has developed software that allows the flight operators to submit multiple, prioritized alternative flight plans. This set of alternative flight plans, submitted along with a filed route, is referred to as a Trajectory Option Set (TOS). And some airlines have now developed initial versions of software capable of generating and submitting such TOSs. This paper reports on cognitive walkthroughs with 5 dispatchers and 3 traffic managers on 5 scenarios designed to evaluate the operational concept, procedures and supporting FAA and airline software. The findings provide guidance for application of the concept of collaborative constraint propagation to support distributed work, as well as 42 recommendations for enhancing associated procedures and supporting software designs.