The overall benefits of free route operations are distance and flight timesaving, resulting in less fuel consumption and a notable reduction of engine emissions, which benefits the environment. Within such airspace, flights remain subject to air traffic control (ATC) for the separation provision and flight level (FL) change authorizations. The implementation of two operational concepts, the free route airspace (FRA) and functional airspace block (FAB), is seen as crucial ‘tools’ for solving those issues.īy definition, FRA is a specified airspace wherein users can freely plan a route between a defined entry point and a defined exit point, with the possibility of routing via intermediate (published or unpublished) waypoints, without reference to the air traffic service (ATS) route network, subject of course to availability. This is an incredible challenge for the safety, the en route sector capacity and impact on the environment. The forecast growth indicates that by 2021, the European sky will handle over 12.3 million operations. In 2018, instrument flight rule (IFR) movements within the European airspace continued to grow strongly (4.65% versus 2017), making last year a new record year in terms of traffic volumes: the number of flights controlled reached an all-time record of more than 11 million. Results show that certain positive relationship exists between traffic demand, conflict risk and complexity. Air traffic complexity is estimated using the EUROCONTROL complexity metrics, while conflict risk is assessed using the conflict risk assessment simulation tool. Having in mind fluctuation in traffic on daily, seasonal or annual level in certain airspace, a few questions arise: How changes in traffic demand influence complexity and conflict risk? Is there any correlation between traffic demand, conflict risk and complexity? and Are there any differences between seasons? For that purpose, an investigation is performed on FAB Europe Central (FABEC) airspace, based on 2 weeks of operated traffic during the summer and fall of 2017. In other words, all these dynamic and static complexity components can potentially have an impact upon the safety of the air traffic management (ATM) system.
These structural (airspace structure) and flow characteristics (factors such as traffic volume, climbing/descending traffic, mix of aircraft type, military area activity) influence airspace complexity, which can affect controller workload and influence the probability of safety occurrence. Air traffic performance of the European air traffic system depends not only on traffic demand but also on airspace structure and its traffic distribution.
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