Abstract
The Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) is part of the FAA Free Flight program which has
been on going for the past 12 years in an attempt to enable controllers the means in which
to manage airspace and reduce delays at airports safely and more efficiently. It uses flight
plan information along with environmental concerns to aide controllers in sequencing
arrivals at airports and makes recommendations for traffic patterns to aide in undue
congestion. The TMA has boosted efficiency of the air traffic controllers and helped in fuel
efficiency and safety for the airlines, passengers and crews.
The Concept of the Traffic Management Advisor
The Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) is used to aide the air traffic controllers and
coordinators through
graphical map, which display alerts, when dealing with aircraft when they are on the outer
meter, meter fixed, final approach and threshold for landing at an airport. The TMA
schedules and sequences times for their orbits and landings at airports which take a lot of
the stress and calculations away from the controllers. It also schedules their landing
runways for the aircraft which helps with separation and safety of the aircraft. It does this
by computing their speed and approach angles which can be seen on a live Doppler type of
screen.
The TMA system relies on eight processes which include the following: 1) the
communications manager which shares information between its databases, 2) the radar
daemon which has a link between the TMA and the controllers computer, 3) the weather
daemon which uses weather information from the national weather service, 4) the timeline
graphical user interface which receives and uses information from the traffic management
controllers computer, 5) the route analyzer which decides which route the aircraft will use,
6) the planview graphical user interface which uses input from the controllers and displays
the information, 7) the trajectory synthesizer which determines the estimated time of
arrival and the descent profile of the aircraft, and 8) the dynamic planner which determines
the runway and the sequences of the other incoming traffic.
The TMA computes the aircraft
schedule and sequencing between 40 and 200 miles from the airport, even before they have
reached the airports controlled airspace. All of this information comes from the aircraft
flight plan and the TMA has the ability to adjust runway assignments and the sequencing
of the aircraft also due to environmental conditions or in response to the input by the
controllers.
The TMA usesan a graphic display which shows all aircraft within its sector and each one
