In visually demanding environments like working positions in air traffic control, there is a risk of missing important information. Attention support might help to reduce this, but there is a risk that it introduces new issues in the form of distractions or increased visual load. The work presented in this paper explores the concept of Soft Visual Cues, with the aim to make the operator aware of missing information, but doing it discreetly enough only to be noticed when the operator is scanning the area where the information is present, thereby complementing the concepts of attention guidance, alarms, and subtle gaze direction. The qualitative evaluation performed aimed primarily at catching the operators' (air traffic controllers) first impressions. Focus was on air traffic control, but was complemented with vessel traffic service and train control environments and operators. The results from air traffic control showed a preference for symbol property changes related to geometry rather than for colour or opacity changes as soft visual cues. The comparison to the other domains highlighted the contextual dependence, visual context and process context, of the concept.

Lack of support for handling a reduction of autonomy in a highly autonomous automation may lead to a stressful situation for a human when forced to take over. We present a design approach, the Reduced Autonomy Workspace, to address this. The starting point is that the human and the automation work together in parallel control processes, but at different levels of autonomy cognitive control, such as setting goals or implementing plans, which is different from levels of automation. When autonomy is reduced, the automation should consult the human by providing information that has been aligned to the level at which the human is working, and the timing of the provision should be adapted to suit the human’s work situation. This is made possible by allowing the automation to monitor the human in a separate process. The combination of these processes, information level alignment and timing of the presentation, are the key characteristics of the Reduced Autonomy Workspace. The Reduced Autonomy Workspace consists of four phases: Identification of the need; evaluation of whether, and, if so, when, and how to present information; perception and response by the human; implementation of a solution by the automation. The timing of the information presentation should be adapted in real-time to provide flexibility, while the level of the information provided should be tuned offline and kept constant to provide predictability. Use of the Reduced Autonomy Workspace can reduce the risk for surprising, stressful hand-over situations, and the need to monitor the automation to avoid them.

Initiating communication and conveying critical information to the human operator is a key problem in human-automation collaboration. This problem is particularly pronounced in time-constrained safety critical domains such as in Air Traffic Management. A visual representation should aid operators understanding why the system initiates the communication, when the operator must act, and the consequences of not responding to the cue. Data glyphs can be used to present multidimensional data, including temporal data in a compact format to facilitate this type of communication. In this paper, we propose a glyph design for communication initialization for highly automated systems in Air Traffic Management, Vessel Traffic Service, and Train Traffic Management. The design was assessed by experts in these domains in three workshop sessions. The results showed that the number of glyphs to be presented simultaneously and the type of situation were domain-specific glyph design aspects that need to be adjusted for each work domain. The results also showed that the core of the glyph design could be reused between domains, and that the operators could successfully interpret the temporal data representations. We discuss similarities and differences in the applicability of the glyph design between the different domains, and finally, we provide some suggestions for future work based on the results from this study.

Traffic management in aviation, shipping, and rail transport shows similarities and dissimilarities in the work process. For example, they share the temporal aspect, but different levels of urgency in the control work set different requirements on monitoring, decisions, and actions. However, few studies have been presented that model and compare the different domains in terms of temporal decision-making. The Joint Control Framework (JCF) is an approach to analyse and temporally model operators’ control processes from a cognitive systems engineering perspective. In this study, we have used JCF to map, and compare, cognitive joints, such as perceptions, decisions, and actions, in temporally challenging control situations in air traffic control, maritime vessel traffic service, and train traffic management. Data was collected collaboratively with traffic operators, focusing on (1) identifying challenging traffic situations and (2) jointly modelling the temporal decision-making patterns of these situations using simplified JCF. Post-analysis was done by breaking down the results into different processes and comparing domains to ascertain how operators maintain control. An intermediate level of activity—between general monitoring and work with specific vehicles—was identified: processes-in-focus. A shared problem arises in the shift between general monitoring and the processes-in-focus. All processes-in-focus comprise cognitive joint cycles of perceptions, decisions, and actions. However, depending on the framing of processes-in-focus, the patterns of joints, such as temporal extension and complexity, differ. In the remainder of the article, implications for the interaction design, in particular the potential for human–AI/automation teaming with higher levels of automation and cognitive autonomy, are discussed.