Human Factors Safety Assurance for Changing ATM Systems

The significant contribution of human error to overall system risk for air traffic management systems has been recognised for some time. It therefore follows that when changes are being made to an ATM system, an important part of the safety assurance for that system is the risk assessment and mitigation for the human element. NATS are in the process of making a number of significant changes to their ATM systems and have been applying formalised and structured techniques for the analysis of human error. One of these techniques, the human error reduction technique for evaluating systems (HERTES), is described with reference to its successful application on the recent implementation of a new control tower at Heathrow Airport. However, it is also recognised that whilst human error assessment is a necessary component of human factors assurance, in isolation it is not sufficient. A complete framework for human factors assurance has therefore been developed and is being applied across all NATS future ATM projects.