ATAC Services: Operations Performance Measurement and Analysis

Services
Airports

ATC Service Providers
Airport Operations and Analysis Airspace Operations Design and Analysis Environmental Modeling and Impact Assessment Aviation Model Development Operations Performance Measurement and Analysis Advanced Concepts Research

Defense

Aviation Research

Operational Performance Measurement and Analysis

ATAC provides ATC Service Providers with a range of expert services to measure and analyze air traffic operational performance, ranging from metric development to large scale cost-benefit analyses.

ATAC's Operational Performance Measurement and Analysis expertise covers four areas:

Metric development and prototyping, where we analyze business and operational needs to define and prototype operational metrics and measurements.
Development of data collection, processing and reporting tools to support the gathering of data needed for measurement and analysis, the processing of that data to compute measurements, and produce reports with actionable information.
Operation and support of data collection, processing and reporting tools, including system installation, system operation, data archiving, user training, and report design.
Analysis of operational data, ranging from small-scale trend analyses on specific metrics to large scale before/after analyses.

Metric Development and Prototyping

ATAC has been involved in the development and prototyping of a wide variety of metrics. Under the Performance Data Analysis and Reporting System (PDARS) program, ATAC supports the FAA Air Traffic Organization in the development of metrics to support the ATO's Strategic Management Process. Metrics range from basic traffic counts to advanced multi-faceted metrics and include:

Traffic counts for runways, airports and sectors
Instantaneous sector counts, comparing aircraft density in sectors with sector capacity
Reroutes, measuring the frequency and impact of in-flight reroutes
Miles in trail compliance, combining data from various sources to determine the effectiveness of traffic flow management initiatives
Flight time, distance and delay
Air route utilization, for example, to determine use of new RNAV and Q-routes

Development of Data Collection, Processing and Reporting Tools

Utilizing ATAC's BirdWatch technology, ATAC developed the FAA's Performance Data Analysis and Reporting System (PDARS). PDARS is a complete system for the distributed collection, analysis and reporting of operational performance data, combined with tools to analyze and improve airspace operations. PDARS collects radar flight track data from FAA's ARTCC and TRACON facilities, does flight synthesis and analysis, and generates over 500 MS Excel reports daily for over 400 users at 50 FAA facilities.

Operation and Support

Under contract with the FAA, ATAC operates the PDARS system and provides support to PDARS users. ATAC's services include system installation (networks, hardware and software), system maintenance, system operation and monitoring, user training, and report development. ATAC operates the PDARS data center which handles over 40 data feeds and contains more than 33,000 days of traffic operations in the archive.

Analysis of Operational Data

ATAC has supported a wide variety of operational analysis studies to support impact assessment, cost/benefit analysis, airspace optimization and environmental impact analysis. Examples include:

Traffic counts for runways, airports and sectors
PDARS was used in a 1998 study to quantify the effect on aircraft operations associated with the use of the new DFW Metroplex.
To improve the traffic flow for westbound arrivals from the east into Los Angeles International Airport, a two-fix arrival procedure was put in place, referred to as the Dual CIVET arrival enhancement procedure (AEP). PDARS was used to analyze the differences in the traffic flows before and after the AEP was put in place.
In April 2000, a one-month test was conducted to determine the benefits of a proposed southbound departure procedure, referred to as the Preheat departure, for Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. PDARS was used for a detailed analysis of the impact of the new procedure.
On January 20th, 2005, the FAA implemented a Domestic Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (DRVSM) standard. Using PDARS, ATAC provided a detailed analysis of the impact of DRVSM.


	BirdWatch Reporting System