NormSTAD flight analysis: visualizing air traffic patterns over the United States

Abstract

In this paper, we describe the NormSTAD Flight Analysis Tool, a novel interactive visualization application that can be used to examine historical data and derive insights on trends, find anomalies and perform strategic planning. A web-based visualization is demonstrated which allows users to analyze flight data and make discoveries pertaining to their 4D trajectories which include their time, distance, altitude, and speed. Unique patterns discovered in this application could result in less fuel consumption by air carriers and more efficient management of departure and arrivals by air traffic controllers. The application consumes ASDI data, product of the Enhanced Traffic Management System (ETMS), then normalizes flight attributes including distance, speed, altitude, and time along the flight path. This information is then displayed on a line chart which can be customized through filtering, coloring and selection. Attributes pertaining to selected flights can be viewed in a details on demand fashion. The result is a both intuitive and visually appealing visualization with the goals of spotting trends and revealing outliers.