Originally Posted by
Uplinker
My point about the visuals is that a few cameras displayed on a couple of flat screens does not give the 360 degree instant zoom in / zoom out and geospatial surround picture that the human eye/brain in tandem with instantaneous head movement does. There is also no depth perception available.
The human being in the actual Tower can simultaneously track all the local traffic, the approach and departure traffic and what is happening down on the ramp whilst taking in the weather conditions and any number of similar situational awareness cues.
Having to pan and zoom cameras all the time it is easy to get disorientated and miss the big picture.
As for video audio and comms links, well I was in that field for 16 years..........Good luck.
And this is all for what? To make controllers lives easier? To improve safety? To increase traffic flow?
NO. To make more profit, that's all.
You've raised some concerns that you, and others, will hold about this technology.
Depth perception is regularly raised as a concern but depth perception is only effective over a relatively short distance (in the order of a few hundred metres). I'd suggest that, in a lot of cases, the control tower is further from the runway than this effective distance and, that even in cases where it's not, that trying to apply any form of separation based on depth perception from the tower is ludicrous.
Your views on multitasking are at odds with what has been learned on the subject over the years. Indeed the whole field of "human factors" has progressed massively. Some people will mock the field without ever reading or learning more about it but that is ignorance, whether conscious or unconscious.
Do you have any experience of operating a PTZ tailored for Air Traffic Control use? It's difficult to be objective about it if you haven't.
(Also, from experience, controllers don't use binoculars all of the time - they are used infrequently and only when something is required to be seen in more detail - so why on earth would controllers be "Having to pan and zoom cameras all the time"?)
Everything I've read, seen and heard from controllers who operate and who have tested digital tower systems has led me to believe, providing redundancy and resiliency measures are effective, that this is a positive safety step for airport ATC provision...and I'm not just talking about glossy press releases.
The consistent feedback I've had from those controllers are the improvement in their view over the airport and the improvement in their situational awareness. (Incidentally traditional tower mullions obscure the view of an airfield to some extent, depending on their siting, width, distance from the controller, etc...you may laugh at that, yet the blind spots these can create have been factors in ATC incidents and will continue to present a risk. That is just one of the ways, tiny it may seem, that digital towers can improve the overall view to the controller.)
Digital towers are not a cheap option. What they do open up is potential for "efficiencies down the line" (Mike Stoller, NATS Airports Director), i.e. pooling of multi-disciplined controllers with potential for more flexible staffing over a number of airports.
The unions are, rightly in my opinion, vehemently opposed to a controller simultaneously controlling more than one airport at a time - that scenario would open up a huge amount of issues. I'd also suggest that during a shift it may be inadviseable for a controller to plug in at Aiport A then switch (with or without a break) to plug in at Airport B. These are issues that are yet to be faced and will be subject to intense scrutiny.