Transition Airspace Resource Management

Similar to how the FAA's Terminal Flight Data Manager will bring runway use configuration support to a large number of airports in the National Airspace System, there exists a need to support how controllers use capacity constrained arrival and departure fixes. This project will develop and validate the Transition Airspace Resource Manager (TARM) concept. The goal of TARM is to increase the efficiency with which capacity-limited transition fixes connecting the enroute and terminal airspaces are used in both clear and disruptive weather conditions, by proactively suggesting reroutes to balance arrival and departure demand across available fixes, relative to capacity, and temporarily reallocating fixes between arrivals and departures when extreme demand or weather conditions warrant. TARM uses stochastic weather and capacity forecasts. The TARM concept represents an important step toward Trajectory Based Operations by integrating a traffic management decision with individual flight trajectories, and applying a TBO paradigm in which arrival and departure flights are separated by trajectory rather than procedural airspace regions.