Busiest En-Route Facility

[Michael Corcoran]

Hey guys,
I thought it would be interesting to see what everyone thought.  Based on what I've heard, ZOB seems to be the busiest en-route airspace (CTR) airspace in the US in real life.  What about VATSIM? Has anyone ever thought about that?

I say ZDV.  It seems it gets the most overflights to the west coast, but I'm wondering what everyone else thinks.

Mike

[Harold Rutila]

Hey guys,
I thought it would be interesting to see what everyone thought.  Based on what I've heard, ZOB seems to be the busiest en-route airspace (CTR) airspace in the US in real life.  What about VATSIM? Has anyone ever thought about that?

I say ZDV.  It seems it gets the most overflights to the west coast, but I'm wondering what everyone else thinks.

Mike

I don't have the stats to prove it, but I have yet to open VRoute and not see at least a couple of flights within the ZDV airspace. We have the highest number at 14 right now on a Wednesday evening without any ATC. I don't really think it means a whole lot, though. In terms of most visited airports, ZNY and ZLA definitely have the cake.

[Rahul Parkar]

En-Route is a tough one... In terms of operations into and out of an ARTCC it is easily ZNY and ZLA, unfortunately

But calculating the number of planes transitioning through your airspace is a toughie on VATSIM as we don't really have true statistics measuring it... Unless somebody has something I don't know about....

ARTCCs such as ZJX who feed most of ZMA's continental US traffic, ZOB who feed ZNY with aircraft inbound and take their westbounds as well as partly feeding CZYZ with traffic north/southbound and ZMP who play a major role in East/Westbound flights to/from the ZNY,ZAU and ZOB areas to the ZLA, ZOA, ZSE and ZDV areas as well as juggling parts of the CZYZ and CZWG streams north/southbound may have some claim to en-route traffic dominance.

But also remember that large amounts of aircraft En-Route doesn't mean high workload all the time if the pre-existing seperation is good

Cheers!
Rahul

[Stephen Faison]

I think ZTL is up there as well. Maybe not "visited" as much as JFK or LAX, but ATL is certainly in the mix. We get a fair amount of overflights too (majority being aircraft heading north or south). Not to mention, we get a decent amount of traffic in/out of our 10 "minor" TRACONs, mostly CLT.

[Bryan Wollenberg]

ZOB is not the busiest center, real world.  I'm pretty sure the Wikipedia numbers are either old are incorrect.  Here's for 2010, least busy to busiest by flights handled.

HCF
ZUA
ZSU
ZAN
ZSE
ZLC
ZAB
ZOA
ZKC
ZDV
ZBW
ZMP
ZLA
ZFW
ZID
ZHU
ZME
ZOB
ZJX
ZMA
ZAU
ZDC
ZNY
ZTL


Here is from as far back as I can search (1989) to present:

HCF
ZSU
ZUA
ZAN
ZSE
ZLC
ZOA
ZAB
ZDV
ZBW
ZKC
ZHU
ZMP
ZLA
ZFW
ZME
ZJX
ZMA
ZID
ZNY
ZDC
ZTL
ZOB
ZAU

ZTL will be ahead of ZOB and ZAU before the end of this year.


As far as VATSIM, I don't know.  I can't really find any useful way to crunch the numbers in the statistics anymore (which is a shame), outside of Vataware, and the statistics the Germans have, which is only valid since May 2010.  As far as individual airports, it used to be EGLL, EDFF, and LAX.  In 2007, ZLA had 77,000 movements just at their Class B's, which has to be up there.  Unfortunately, the numbers are always going to be skewed because you can't check for overflights using any VATSIM data...at least I don't think you can.

[Alex Evins]

http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headqu...edia/201103.pdf

[Bryan Wollenberg]

Hmmmmm...that list is slightly different than mine, which I pulled straight from the ATADS database at work.  Gotta love it!

[Brendan Lynch]

The biggest problem I have with that list is that Charlotte Tower was listed as the 8th busiest and yet it is still not a major facility.  The only upside to that is that you don't need major certification to control there.

[Alex Evins]

Hmmmmm...that list is slightly different than mine, which I pulled straight from the ATADS database at work.  Gotta love it!

ATADS is updated monthly on the 20th, the Administrator's Fact Book is updated yearly.

[Harold Rutila]

The biggest problem I have with that list is that Charlotte Tower was listed as the 8th busiest and yet it is still not a major facility.  The only upside to that is that you don't need major certification to control there.

You realize that's an FAA list and not VATSIM list, right? That's not to mention that major ratings are not all about traffic levels.

[Bryan Wollenberg]

ATADS is updated monthly on the 20th, the Administrator's Fact Book is updated yearly.

Yeah, I ran the ATADS data for all of 2010 about 2 days ago, which should be completely updated.  Out of dumb curiosity, I'm going to compare the actual traffic counts and see where the two lists differ.  I go with ATADS as being the most accurate, but who knows.

Brendan, it is indeed the FAA list.  The OP mentioned ZOB real world, so I just wanted to post the actual list for those who were curious.  

On VATSIM, CLT looks like it averages around 15 movements a day, which isn't going to put it anywhere close to the Top 10.

[Kyle Chalk]

Yeah, I ran the ATADS data for all of 2010 about 2 days ago, which should be completely updated.  Out of dumb curiosity, I'm going to compare the actual traffic counts and see where the two lists differ.  I go with ATADS as being the most accurate, but who knows.

Brendan, it is indeed the FAA list.  The OP mentioned ZOB real world, so I just wanted to post the actual list for those who were curious.  

On VATSIM, CLT looks like it averages around 15 movements a day, which isn't going to put it anywhere close to the Top 10.

@Bryan Yea we are working on that bit, CLT's big sister tends to steal the show from it  , and @Brendan if charlotte becomes a "VATSIM Major" i don't believe it will effect  it by much, i'm not saying we are not trying to make it one,  its just a very long process.