N. J. Taber, The MITRE Corporation
G. E. Wilmouth, Metron Aviation, Inc.
G. J. Jacobs, The MITRE Corporation
The Integrated Collaborative Rerouting (ICR) Concept was developed under the auspices of a
Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) working group. That working group, the Future Concepts
of Flow Management Sub-Team (known as the FCT), includes members from the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA), air carriers, and business aviation, as well as private industry,
academia, and aviation research organizations.
One of the tools currently available for traffic flow management (TFM) in the National
Airspace System (NAS) is defining and issuing reroutes to avoid potential weather and en route
congestion problems. Today's reroute process is manually intensive and usually involves a one
size fits all approach that is prescribed by the FAA without significant input from NAS users.
ICR is an enhanced, more collaborative version of rerouting that involves customers early in the
process and allows them to submit preferences for reroutes. FAA traffic managers (local and
national) coordinate to define the constraint and provide more information to customers (in the
form of Planning Advisories and route guidance) than they do today. Customers know their
business needs and aircraft capabilities/limitations. Through the ICR process, they have the
opportunity and additional automation to find reroute options for flights that avoid the constraint.
The premise is that customer-submitted preferences will be accepted unless the traffic managers
determine they are operationally infeasible. The FAA then deals with non-participating flights
that have not rerouted themselves around the constraint. Modeling capabilities are important
allowing traffic managers and customers to see the impact of proposed reroutes and creation of
better reroute plans. Enhanced monitoring capabilities allow better implementation of the plan.
The ICR concept addresses several areas for improvement identified in early FCT discussions
concerning the rerouting process.
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