Tactical Surface Metering Procedures and Information Needs for Charlotte Douglas International Airport

NASA has been working with the Federal Aviation Administration and aviation industry partners to develop and demonstrate new concepts and technologies that integrate arrival, departure, and surface traffic management capabilities. In the fall of 2017, NASA began deployment of their technologies in a phased manner to assist with the integrated surface and airspace operations at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (Charlotte, NC). Initial technologies included a tactical surface metering tool and data exchange elements between the airline-controlled ramp and Federal Aviation Administration controlled Air Traffic Control Tower. In this paper, we focus on the procedures associated with the tactical surface metering tool used in the ramp control tower. This tool was first calibrated in Human-In-the-Loop simulations and was further developed when it was used in the operational world. This paper describes the collaborative procedures that the users exercised in their respective operational worlds to enable surface metering and how several metrics were used to improve the metering algorithm.