Exploratory analysis of safety data and their interrelation with flight trajectories and network metrics

This paper presents an exploratory analysis of the correlation between different network metrics and safety events. The objective is to develop analysis methods and indicators that relate the network structure with safety events. In particular by using data gathered with an automatic tool developed by EUROCONTROL and a database of traffic data, we measured the correlations between the classical metrics of the airspace network, especially the network of navigation points, and the occurrence of Short Term Conflicts Alerts (STCA). The results obtained are not univocal; correlation between STCA occurrences and classical network metrics are present but the correlation coefficient is around 0.7. This indicates that correlation between STCA occurrences and the airspace characteristics can be established but further analyses with more data are necessary to confirm this result. Moreover it could be useful to look for non-classical metrics that can better describe the relationship we are looking for.