A white paper on Human Performance in Air Traffic Management Safety
I have recently read with interest a White Paper written by Eurocontrol and the U.S. FAA, with the participation of a number of European ANSPs on Human performance in ATM safety.
This paper explains how Human performance and safety are linked in ATM. It does this by exploring four areas:
- Investing in human performance,
- Understanding human performance,
- Exploring the link between human performance and system safety and
- Looking at priority human performance issues for future ATM
In a nutshell, the white paper argues that “no matter how advanced … ATM systems become, humans will be on centre stage as the decision makers…” and that it is therefore important to understand human performance, to invest in it and to manage it well.
It also explains how a human factors case is an integral part of a systems safety case. “An HF-informed safety case is a richer and more realistic evaluation of safety risk, with the human contribution … fully represented. This enables decision-makers to make sound decisions”
Finally it looks at the future in ATM and on how the two main research and development programmes, SESAR and NextGen, one on each side of the Atlantic include human performance in their work programmes.
The document is very accessible: easy to read and only 29 pages long [including quite a few diagrams 
] It also gives references to human factors tools, guidelines, databases, websites books and training that you might want to dig into if you are interested in the subject.
