National Airspace System architecture metrics assessment

The MITRE Corporation conducted a study to explore methods for evaluating proposed National Airspace System (NAS) Architecture options. The study investigated analytic approaches for quantifying characteristics of candidate NAS architectures such as costs, benefits, and risks. One vision of the product of such an approach was a Consumer Reports-style comparison of candidate NAS Architecture options. Identifying the metrics to quantify was a major issue addressed in the study, which produced a list of metrics to be considered in NAS Architecture assessment and a process that could be used to coordinate and formalize assessment. The study also explored probabilistic modeling to predict values for some metrics and represent the uncertainties in the predictions. A new commercial software package, Analytica, was used for this activity. This paper describes the proposed metrics, a process for formalizing the assessment of metrics, and a probabilistic model of NAS safety that was developed to assess the potential of probabilistic modeling in NAS Architecture assessment.