5miles,
Your description of the increased sectorisation is illuminating but does this work? I can see that it would result in controllers handling fewer aircraft but surely this would be counterbalanced by the increased demand on time for co-ordination/handover? Even if it works for now there would become a point at which further sectorisation becomes less efficient and once the optimum is reached what next?
The second thought that runs through my mind is that this overload thread is splitting into two camps. On one side it is concerned about actual controller workload and, on the other side, about R/T overload. The two are connected but not exclusive.
R/T overload is the more apparent of the two to aircrew. Last week I tried for some time to establish initial coms with ATC (north of CLIPY) but R/T was solid. In the end ATC called me! OK, maybe I'm not so fast on the trigger finger these days but it isn't nice having to battle for talk time.
R/T congestion results in other undesirables too. Rapid fire speech on the controllers part because he's got too much to say in too short a time frame. The same from pilots because the atmoshpere encourages it (we are aware R/T is busy and try not to hog the frequency). Controllers not able to wait for readbacks because they have to move on to other decision making transmissions. Readbacks that you hope are being listened to despite the controller working like a one armed paperhanger and probably has his mind on other tasks. I confess I don't like it and I am sure that both pilots and controllers are uncomfortable when it gets like this.
I wonder if the whole concept of R/T is now too slow for the increasing load on ATC systems. At a simple level I'm thinking of the wasted R/T time when two people key the mike together and block the frequency - and the subsequent "say again" needed to sort this out. It can mount up to a good chunk of R/T time.
At a more serious level I wonder if our current R/T procedures require a more serious overhaul. Verbal communication is slow so maybe we need to develop an even more highly concise language than we currently use. There isn't a lot of garbage in what we say right now so its a matter of getting what we need to say out a lot faster.
Maybe it is even time to consider alternative technologies to replace or enhance current systems/procedures. Maybe some sort of audio control that prevents anyone transmitting once someone else has keyed a mike - surely better than listening to ten seconds of slush that is invariably going to require repeating..
Just thoughts gentlemen but we all know that the present way we do things are not going to survive for much longer. The current solution of reducing sectors can only be taken so far and is a short term remedy. It's time to start looking at the whole system.