Cognitive Engineering and Safety Organization in Air Traffic Management

This book covers the Air Traffic Management (ATM) environment and the controller-crew interactions. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) regulations and organizational procedures are also presented in a succinct manner so that novel and experienced aviation practitioners appreciate how safety organization affects their cognitive performance. The book distills theoretical knowledge about human cognition and presents real examples and case studies to help readers understand how air traffic controllers make sense of difficult situations, make decisions under time pressure, detect and correct their errors, and adapt their performance to complex situations.

An Overview of Management of Operations and Safety. The Air Traffic Management System. Factors Affecting ATM Performance. Safety Organization and Risk Management. Architectures of Cognition. Decision-making. Sense-making. Human Error Detection and Recovery. Adaptive Practices in Aviation and Air Traffic Control. Reducing Complexity by Design and Training. Training for Emergencies. Workload and Complexity. New Challenges in ATM. System and Organizational Models. Organizational Models of Safety. System Modeling and Accident Investigation. Integrating Organizational and Performance Models. Organizational Decisionmaking in Managing Tradeoffs: A Resilience Approach.

Tom Kontogiannis, PhD, is a professor in Human Factors and Industrial Safety in the Department of Production Engineering & Management, Technical University of Crete. He holds degrees in engineering, industrial safety and human factors engineering. While working as a human factors consultant in England (1988–1997), he took part in more than 30 industrial projects regarding human reliability, decision-support systems, risk assessment and business process management. Since 1997, he heads the Cognitive Ergonomics & Industrial Safety (CEIS) Lab in Technical University of Crete and works on human performance modeling, decision making under stress, training of cognitive skills, error management, applications of system dynamics to safety, organizational safety and risk management. He has published many peer-reviewed journal papers and a book on guidelines for preventing human error in process safety. Since 2005, he is actively involved in the experimental analysis of cognitive strategies used by air traffic controllers in managing unusual occurrences. A real-time ATC simulator has been used to model the complexity of air traffic management, examine conflict detection and resolution strategies as well as simulate near misses. Recent work with the European Commission includes virtual reality systems for industrial training, information tools for human performance modeling and design of safety management systems. Stathis Malakis, PhD, is an active air traffic controller working for the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority (HCAA) for seventeen years. He holds tower, approach procedural, and approach radar and instructor/assessor/examiner ratings. He led the development of HCAA’s safety management system and he is the safety focal point of Rhodes/Diagoras Aerodrome Air Traffic Control section. He holds a BSc in Mathematics, an MSc in Air Transport Management and a PhD in Cognitive Systems Engineering. He completed an experimental analysis of unusual occurrences in air traffic control in Eurocontrol and developed tools for training needs analysis. He has published many peer-reviewed journal papers in cognitive strategies in air traffic control, error detection, simulator training and accident investigation.