Integrated Application of the Collaborative Trajectory Options Program

This paper presents use cases for a Concept of Operations (CONOPS) to support more effective pre-departure reroutes in order to reduce departure delays. It describes three different use cases characterizing the use of the Collaborative Trajectory Options Program (CTOP) [1] to manage traffic flows in order to deal with convective weather impacting departures. The first illustrates how CTOP could be used as a replacement for the use of Playbook plays, supporting a more surgical approach to deal with an en route convective weather constraint. The second illustrates how CTOP could be used for the tactical management of departures from a single airport, indicating how it could be integrated with TBFM, PDRR and airport surface management. The third use case provides a detailed example of an interaction design to support the planning of a CTOP Traffic Management Initiative (TMI) focusing on the management of departures in an integrated manner from a number of departure airports. In the discussion of the third use case, a prototype interface is presented to indicate requirements for the supporting interaction design.