From Paper Flight Strips to Digital Strip Systems: Changes and Similarities in Air Traffic Control Work Practices

To increase capacity and safety in air traffic control, digital strip systems have superseded paper strips in lower airspace control centers in Europe. Previous ethnographic studies on paper strip systems anticipated a radical change in work practices with digital strip systems, but we are not aware of any studies that evaluated these predictions. We carried out contextual inquiries with controllers and focused on face-to-face and radio communication, interactions with the digital strip system and the workspace in general. In turn, we contribute (1) detailed descriptions of controllers’ work practices, such as using tacit information from radio communication and ‘standard advocates vs. tinkerers’ operation modes, (2) respective implications for design and (3) discuss how the observed work practices are similar or different from the reported practices in the literature of the two preceding decades. Our key insights are, that documentation speed is faster with digital strips, although a high load in the case of radio frequency persists. Controllers retrieve tacit information from the radio communication and combine it with scattered cues from several displays to form empathic decisions that sometimes exceed the standard protocol. We conclude that the role of tacit information holds opportunities for future flight systems and should be considered in a holistic approach to individualized workspaces for controllers.