Conflict Detection in Air Traffic Conrol: Distuinguishing Between Judgments of Conflict Risk and Intervention Decisions

Abstract

This paper seeks to make a distinction between cognitive processes involved in conflict risk judgment and those involved in conflict avoidance decisions (controllers’ interventions for separation assurance). First, we conducted a systematic review of the conflict detection literature to identify studies that focused on conflict risk assessments and studies that focused on conflict avoidance (intervention). We then report empirical data pertaining to controller intervention judgments. Studies on conflict avoidance have rarely described the intervention decision making process and its interaction with the conflict risk assessment process, whereas our data indicated differences in terms of information processing between judgments of conflict risk and intervention judgments. We provide recommendation for future studies on conflict detection and conflict avoidance. These findings also have implications for the development of automated conflict detection tools