A Preliminary Field Study of Altitude Influence on the Vigilance of Air Traffic Controllers

The vigilance of air traffic controllers (ATCs) is very important for their abilities to perform safety-related operational duties. The aim of the paper is to learn the altitude influence on the vigilance of ATCs. 82 ATCs working in the areas of three different altitude levels participated a psychomotor vigilance task test to obtain their reaction time and accuracy rate as two indexes of vigilance before work in the morning. The results showed that the altitude effect to the reaction time of ATCs was very significant (p < 0.001); the reaction time of ATCs in plain area was significantly shorter than that in plateau area, and very significantly shorter than that in high plateau area; moreover, the reaction time of ATCs in plateau area was very significantly shorter than that in high plateau area. However, the altitude effect to the accuracy rate of ATCs was marginally significant (p = 0.52). These results indicated that the altitude influence on the vigilance of ATCs was complex. For the reaction time, the influence was very significant and the higher the altitude was, the longer reaction time of ATCs becomes. For the accuracy rate, the influence appeared marginally significant. These results will prompt to consider the altitude influence in the assignment of workload and human resource for the aviation safety.