Automation, teamwork, and the feared loss of safety: Air traffic controllers’ experiences and expectations on current and future ATM systems

In various control systems, automation is implemented to increase efficiency and safety. With increased automation, it becomes increasingly relevant to view the automation as a team member, rather than as a tool. In best cases, human-automation teamwork keeps workload within acceptable limits, increase situation awareness, and keeps the operator in the control loop. However, human-automation teamwork will only flourish if the automation is developed with the human operator in mind. Therefore, investigations of the current experiences and expectations regarding automation and teamwork are important for the development of automation. Through a questionnaire among Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs), the present study aims to investigate how ATCOs perceive automation and safety in current and future air traffic control systems and the importance of different teamwork factors for human-human and human-automation collaboration. The results indicate that the ATCOs believe that safety will increase in the future along with increasing automation as long as the automation is working as expected. The ATCOs expressed a fear of deskilling and losing situation awareness with automation, a fear associated with a new ATCO role of monitoring the system and take over when the automation fails. The results suggest that design for human-automation teamwork aspects that ATCOs value, such as adaptability or mutual performance monitoring, could be a way forward.