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In order to improve air traffic coordination and planning, future ATMs need to allow various users of a particular airspace, timely access to the same data. Already, advances in technology, in the form of enhanced tools assisting airspace controllers and users, have enabled the sharing of high fidelity data across systems and improving standards in air traffic safety and throughput. To-date most of these tools are human- centered. The thesis presents a set of human-centered tools which use a common data structure for: detecting and resolving air traffic congestion, conflict detection and resolution and limiting the search space, in a ‘free-flight environment’. The chosen data-structure represents sets of discretized and indexed volumes of airspace, called ‘bins’, which store all the information necessary for operation in different airspace sectors. An algorithm using these bins has been proposed in the thesis. A large number of experiments carried out on a single purpose simulator, developed as a part of the thesis, have resulted in a set of optimized conflict free routes, which amply illustrate both medium and short-term detection of congestion and conflicts and provide solutions for their avoidance, across a large airspace volume that contains several airspace sectors, efficiently. In addition, a limited set of experiments, carried out with qualified ATCs in the loop, highlights the fact that the proposed ATM tool does assist them in better visualizing traffic flow and encounter geometry(ies).

Radiotelephony between air traffic controllers and pilots utilises standard phraseology as the medium of communications. Standard phraseology employs specific structure, terminology and pronunciation to ensure effectiveness and accuracy. On occasions when standard phraseology is found insufficient, plain language is used to efficiently relay vital information. By default, English is the designated language of communication between controllers and pilots of international flights. Deviations from the usage of standard phraseology and lack of language proficiency had been identified as one of the causal factors in safety occurrences. Language deficiencies, specifically of the non-native speakers of the English language, had raised much concern but there is limited information in the area. This research attempted to fill a small segment of this knowledge gap. It was focussed on the usage of standard phraseology and English language in an air traffic control environment involving English Second Language users. Audio data was sourced from routine radiotelephony recordings of ‘live’ air traffic control facilities in Malaysia to capture realistic communications between controllers and pilots in the Terminal Approach Radar, Area Radar and Aerodrome Control environments. A detailed cross sectional investigation of the radiotelephony characteristics, deficiencies and errors of transmitted messages revealed the radiotelephony performances of controllers and pilots in the environments. The recurrence of deviations from standards and occurrence of errors implied the likelihood of such deficiencies taking place. Demographic groups’ descriptions complemented the radiotelephony analyses as background information on language related training. The results were comparative to other similar studies and offered new information on English Second Language speakers in the Air Traffic Control environment.