An Aggregate Model of Controller Requirements for Enroute Traffic Control

This study develops one of the performance modules of the FAA's NAS Strategy Simulator project. An aggregate model that estimates the annual enroute controller requirements for serving the low, mid and high density airspace over the contiguous United States is developed. The current physical boundaries of sectors in each enroute center is neglected while the average sector size and the resulting average sector demand are determined by a theoretical relation, given the peak hour demand of a chunk of airspace and other parameters of airspace characteristics. A statistical relation is then estimated to predict the number of controller positions based on the number of sectors. An iterative procedure connects all components in the model and, after converging, determines average sector size and total number of controllers. The model can provide an estimate of future capacity for evaluating enroute performance and can also be used to examine the current approach to determine annual requirements for controllers.