Obstacles for Remote Air Traffic Services: A Multilevel Perspective

Abstract: Air traffic services (ATS) play an important role for flight safety. Remote air traffic services (RATS) represent a novel, more digitalized, ATS solution. In some aspects, RATS can be argued to outperform conventional ATS. However, as it entails various sociotechnical obstacles, making RATS the dominant solution for ATS is challenging. An inadequate awareness of such sociotechnical obstacles potentially impedes the competitiveness of RATS in general and the RATS providers in particular. This study intends to - from a sociotechnical perspective - identify main obstacles as faced by RATS when aspiring to become the dominant solution for ATS. In order to identify such obstacles, an abductive case study has been conducted. Empirical data was primarily gathered by semi-structured interviews with 10 key stakeholders involved, directly or indirectly, with RATS. The study is delimited to principally gather empirics from Sweden and the United Kingdom. Theoretical concepts of Large Technical Systems (LTS) and the Multilevel Perspective (MLP) are employed to understand and analyze the empirical data. The identified obstacles faced by RATS are mapped into the different levels of the MLP. Obstacles have been identified in all levels of the MLP. The most prominent obstacles seem to lay in social aspects of change processes, a proposition-perception gap, and connectivity infrastructure dependency.