Why FMDS?

The FAA manages the safest, busiest and most complex airspace system in the world. Our air traffic professionals manage this airspace 24 hours a day, 7 days a week using a variety of systems to maintain the efficiency and safety to all users; one of these systems is the existing Traffic Flow Management System (TFMS).

The current traffic management system is aging and the FAA is replacing the legacy TFMS with the Flow Management Data and Services (FMDS) system to reflect the needs of the National Airspace System (NAS) today and in the future to maintain the efficiency and safety for all users.

What is FMDS?

• Traffic Flow Management (TFM) powers the Command Center, and FMDS is its future technological backbone.
• FMDS will provide a reliable traffic flow management (TFM) automation system by utilizing modern architecture and infrastructure for better reliability, maintainability, and availability (RMA) to users and reduced response time, as compared to TFMS.
• FMDS is a modernized automation platform that balances air traffic demand with the actual capacity of the airspace and airports. It analyzes flight plans, airline schedules, and real-time position updates to project congestion hours in advance.

• FMDS will leverage new technologies and a new approach to software architecture and infrastructure, allowing TFM activities to scale to projected air traffic growth.

• FMDS updates include faster development cycles, consolidated applications, and a streamlined interface for TFM automation system functions that will improve the user experience via an integrated situation awareness display.

Benefits

• Fewer flight delays: Assimilates real-time flight, weather, and airline data to optimize traffic patterns using advanced software modeling. This precise predictive intelligence minimizes delays.
• Faster reroutes: Uses real-time predictive modeling to orchestrate highly localized flight reroutes around weather systems, reducing disruption to the flying public.  
• Improved safety & efficiency: Consolidates multiple screens, computer displays and applications into one integrated display, eliminating duplicate manual data entry. Allows air traffic managers to focus entirely on safety interventions during high-stress weather events and to more proactively execute TFM actions.  
• Collaborative decision making: Streamlines the exchange of live data between the FAA and airspace users, supporting collaborative decision making about the most optimal routing.    
• Greater reliability: Resilient architecture dynamically scales computing power in real time to enable immediate backup switchovers during peak holiday travel loads.
• More sustainable travel: Strategic route planning optimizes departure windows and flight paths, lowering the commercial airline industry's carbon footprint.  

Collaborations

FMDS collaborates with many stakeholders across the FAA. These partnerships are integral to the program's success. Streamlines the exchange of live data between the FAA and airspace users, supporting collaborative decision making about the most optimal routing.

• The Traffic Flow Management System (TFMS) is the NAS-wide system for planning and implementing strategic and tactical traffic flow management initiatives to mitigate demand/capacity imbalance. 
• Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) is a federally funded joint government and industry initiative aimed at improving air traffic flow management through increased information exchange among aviation community stakeholders. CDM is comprised of representatives from government, general aviation, airlines, private industry and academia who work together to create technological and procedural solutions to the Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) challenges faced by the NAS.