Automation acceptance in air traffic management

Abstract

The Air Traffic Management (ATM) system and its operators are under increasing pressure to improve the efficiency of their operation. One solution involves increasing the utilization of automation within the ATM system. The success of this approach is reliant on Air Traffic Control Officers (ATCO) willingness to accept increased levels of automation in their role. The primary aim of the research described in this thesis is to examine the drivers that underlie the ATCOs willingness to accept or refuse high levels of automation in their professional role, and to investigate where, on a continuum from no automation to full automation, resistance can be anticipated ( the tipping point ). The first of three experiments reveals that the traditional predictors of automation acceptance such as trust and job satisfaction explain between 4 and 7% of ATCOs willingness to accept automation in their role. The results also reveal a threshold in users acceptances of automation, this being at a point where the decision-making was removed from the ATCO. Experiment 2 surveyed 20 professional ATCOs in an attempt to identify what other factors could account for their willingness to accept high(er) levels of automation in their role. The results reveal that user-friendliness, functionality, and quality of the automation are important predictors of user acceptance. Experiment 3 tests these new constructs with a sample of non-ATCOs under various levels of automation, in order to assess their predictive validity as well as the robustness of the tipping point. The results reveal that the three new constructs help very little in terms of predictive significance with this sample. In addition, the results reveal the stability of the tipping point to be at the same level as was detected with the ATCO sample.