A Simulation Game Application for Improving the United States’ Next Generation Air Transportation System NextGen

Abstract

Societies around the world depend on the proper functioning of various infrastructures. However, changes in technology, societal needs/expectations, political shifts, and environmental concerns cause infrastructure systems to underperform (i.e., congestion, energy shortage, air transportation delays, etc.). In order to accurately plan the next generation infrastructure systems, understanding the interactions between technical, political, and economic factors as well as stakeholders are of paramount importance. The current research pursued the development and deployment of a simulation game which aimed to serve as a venue to generate and evaluate data for next generation infrastructure development efforts. The problem domain was selected as the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) transition environment. The complex and stakeholder-rich environment of NextGen provided an accurate test-bed for the sociotechnical system transformation, highlighting the interaction of variables like system capacity, safety, public demand, and stakeholder behavior with diverging agendas under various world scenarios.