The Relationship Between Air Traffic Control Communication Events and Measures of Controller Taskload and Workload

A study was conducted to determine whether air traffic control (ATC) communication events (number and duration of controller/ pilot communications) would predict subjective estimates of controller workload as well as taskload measures based on aircraft and controller activities. Analyses were conducted that compared different regression models’ predictions of subjective workload estimates made by 16 subject matter experts for 8 samples of air traffic activity. The predictors in the regression models were different combinations of five taskload principal components computed from routinely recorded ATC data and two measures of pilot/controller voice communications. A series of model comparisons was conducted to determine whether a “reduced” regression model containing fewer variables would predict the workload ratings as well as the full model containing all predictors. Several reduced models predicted ATWIT ratings as well as the full model, but a reduced model containing only the communications variables was not as effective. The results suggest that certain voice communications measures add nothing to the prediction of subjective workload, over and above that of taskload.