Analysis of aircraft conflict geometries in Europe

Conflict management is a central role of air traffic control. Several projects in the world work on the semi- or full-automation of this function. The understanding of the nature of aircraft conflict is a prerequisite for successful automation. Therefore, it would be useful to update the statistics about aircraft conflicts in Europe, to know where and when they occur, the distribution of attitudes of involved aircraft, of encounter angles, encounter speeds, encounter flight levels, and flight phases at the time of conflict. Of special interest are also statistics about proximities and correlations with other parameters of airspace complexity. The results of the European-wide simulation give new insights into the nature of conflicts. The studies have been conducted with the help of a simulation model. The simulation tool is presented, and the assumptions and conditions of the simulations described. The empirical data is used for a theoretical discussion about uncertainty of conflict prediction.