Tactical Surface Metering Procedures and Information Needs for Charlotte Douglas International Airport

Sep 14, 2026

Uploaded by Mimi

NASA collaborates with the FAA and aviation industry partners to develop and demonstrate integrated arrival, departure, and surface traffic management concepts under the ATD-2 project. Beginning in fall 2017, phased deployment supported integrated surface and airspace operations at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. The work highlights procedures and information needs for a tactical surface metering tool used in the ramp control tower, describing how calibration in human-in-the-loop simulations and later operational use enabled surface metering and improved metering via specific metrics.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Airport departure management challenges

Related metering tools and prior research

ATD-2 project context and system goals

Tactical Surface Scheduler and Metering Tool overview

Tactical Surface Metering Procedures and Information Needs for Charlotte Douglas International Airport Savita Verma1 , William J. Coupe2 , Hanbong Lee1 , Isaac Robeson3 , Yoon Jung1 , Shivanjli Sharma 1 , Victoria L. Dulchinos4 , Lindsay Stevens1 1 NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, 2 USRA , NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field , CA 94035, 3 Mosaic ATM, Leesburg, VA 20176 , 4 San Jose State University, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035 {Savita.A.Verma, William.J.Coupe, Hanbong.Lee, Isaac.Robeson, Yoon.Jung, Shivanjli.Sharma, Victoria.L.Dulchinos, [Lindsay.Stevens} @nasa.gov](Lindsay.Stevens} @nasa.gov) Abstract. NASA has been working with the FAA and aviation industry partners to develop and demonstrate new concepts and technologies that integrate arrival, departure, and surface traffic management capabilities. In the fall of 2017 , NASA began deployment of their technologies in a phased manner to assist with the integrated surface and airspace operations at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (Charlotte, NC). Initial technologies included a tactical surface metering tooland data exchange elements between the airline-controlled ramp and Federal Aviation Administration controlled ATC Tower . In this paper, we focus on the procedures associated with the tactical surface metering tool used in the ramp control tower. This tool was first calibrated in Human-In-the-Loop simulations and was further developed when it was used in the operational world. This paper describes the collaborative procedures that the users exercised in their respective operational worlds to enable surface metering and how several metrics were used to improve the metering algorithm. Keywords: Human Factors · Surface Metering · Collaborative decision making 1 Introduction Managing departure operations in busy airport and airspace environments, with limited data sharing and system integration, can significantly limit efficiency and predictability. Stakeholders, including air carriers and air navigation service providers, have their own objectives in managing traffic , and often these objectives compete with one another. Also, decisions in managing traffic are often made in a reactive manner with short planning horizons due to operational uncertainties and a lack of common situation awareness between Flight Operators and service providers. For example, during periods when demand exceeds capacity at the airport, service providers manage traffic using the First Come, First Serve (FCFS) paradigm, where they serve the flights that first call in as ready for pushback. With many airlines having similar ticketed departure times , this leads to surface congestion. There is a need for a tool that provides departure metering to prevent surface congestion. Other tools that perform departure metering include those deployed at sites such as John F. Kennedy (JFK) airport (NY) and are focused on providing Target Movement Area entry Times (TMATs) to the airlines several hours in advance, making the tool primarily strategic in nature [1]. The tool deployed at JFK provides departure metering capability with a longer planning horizon, i.e. , several hours into the future, and it also allows the airline users to update flight ready times and request flight swaps as they know the situation better . A departure metering tool that could meter the traffic while considering arrivals and runway crossings, in a tactical manner, could potentially alleviate the congestion problem. Research on one such tool, the Spot and Runway Departure Advisor (SARDA) [2 , 3] has been conducted at NASA Ames Research Center. This tool was further investigated and deployed at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) , NC in the fall of 2017 under the Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD-2) project [4] described in the next section. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been collaborating with the Federal Aviation Adminis

FAQs

What problem does the tactical surface metering approach aim to address at Charlotte Douglas International Airport?

It aims to reduce surface congestion and improve efficiency when demand exceeds capacity and decisions are made reactively with limited shared situation awareness.

How does the paper characterize the Tactical Surface Scheduler/Metering Tool?

It is described as tactical, operating over a short planning horizon (about the next 10 minutes) to provide ramp controllers pushback advisories and respond to emerging surface and airspace constraints.

What roles does collaboration play in the metering procedures described?

The paper focuses on collaborative procedures between users in their operational worlds and explains how metrics were used to improve the metering algorithm.

Sep 14, 2026

Uploaded by Mimi