Introduction

I was inspired to learn and share about the world of air traffic visualizations because of a video I watched called Inside Europe’s Busiest Air Traffic Control – Amsterdam (see 09:30-13:30) and the article, Designing the Sky: How Airline Route Maps Changed the Way We Travel. Maps have been produced for centuries by humans documenting their surroundings. However, a major category of mapped visualizations includes the documentation of travel routes by foot, water, and air. The timeline presented “The Evolution of Air Traffic Visualizations” also stems from my interest in the themes of history, travel, and data. The timeline supllies a look at several examples of air traffic visualizations.

At the beginning of the commercial flying experience in the early 20th century, air traffic visualizations consisted of map designs marketing air travel to wealthy consumers. Airplanes were still a new technology at the time, therefore several maps consisted of eye catching designs to attract clientele but these maps lacked geographical accurateness and quantitative data. However, this changed as technology developed in the later 20th century and the early 21st century. The invention of the computer significantly improved the output of air traffic visualizations. Of course, the increase in air traffic also contributed to the amount of data available to create more complex designs. The internet became a place where anyone could create informative, quantitative, and visually pleasing air traffic maps. Furthermore, open source data sets are available to the public for the creation of complex visualizations for the purpose of informational reports and analysis.

Method

My timeline was created using TimelineJS, a tool designed by Northwestern University Knight Lab. The tool provides an interactive experience for users to flip through a sequence of chronological events. This is accomplished with the Google Sheet provided which is simply filled out with data regarding your topic. There are various fields to input information in the timeline such as Year, Month, Day, Time, Headline, Text, and Media. Customization is also possible to an extent, such as the ability to change the background color. Once the google sheet is filled in, it can then be published and the URL is used to supply the Timeline JS tool with the data to create the final timeline visualization. Edits to the Google Sheet can be made at any time and the changes are reflected on the timeline visualization. Overall, this Timeline JS provides a streamlined method to creating simple visualization of a sequence of events.

Visualization

The Evolution of Air Traffic Visualizations Timeline

The timeline produced for this visualization includes examples from early air traffic maps to modern air traffic visualizations. I decided to select 3 representations from the 20th century and 3 from the 21st century. Since the examples from the 20th century were mostly standard map designs, the 21st century examples I selected focused more on maps created using different media formats. This decision was to provide a range of visualizations in order to create a better viewing experience for the viewer and reduce repetitive slides.

In addition to the selection of air traffic visualization examples, I was able to change the color of the timeline’s background to a subtle blue due to its association with the sky. Design wise, I focused more on content because the visualizations selected where the main focus. I included visualizations such as the video above because it was made with the intention in building trust with the public. Another example from 2020 dealt with Covid-19 crowd sourced air traffic data which was used to visualize the effect the pandemic had on the skies. Overall, I wanted the timeline to reflect diverse examples in media format and moreover introduce air traffic visualizations with different purposes.

Reflection

I enjoyed exploring the different type of maps relating to air traffic. It came as a surprise to me that commercial flying started in the early 1900s and that air traffic maps have evolved so exponentially in their design and use. If I had more time to improve the timeline, I would learn how to further customize the design of the slides, such as font, color placement, type color, and type size. The basic tool provided by Timeline JS was limited in customization, unless you are knowledgeable in CSS.

Furthermore, to improve the timeline I would create a different version focusing on the various 21st century air traffic visualizations that I was not able to include due to Timeline JS’s media format limitation. Below is an example of an interactive data visualization using a large data set from 2014 U.S. Flight Departure Delays created by Ben Jones. I thought this was a great example in creating informative visualizations.

References

Designing the Sky: How Airline Route Maps Changed the Way We Travel—The Statesider. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2023, from https://statesider.us/history-of-airline-route-maps/

Kambitsis, J. (n.d.). Watch an Entire Day of Air Traffic in One Astonishing Visualization. Wired. Retrieved January 29, 2023, from https://www.wired.com/2014/03/plane-viz/

Tetratech. (n.d.). 3-Dimensional Visualization for Aviation Technology. Retrieved January 28, 2023, from https://www.tetratech.com/en/projects/3-dimensional-visualization-for-aviation-technology

The Evolution of the Commercial Flying Experience. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2023, from https://airandspace.si.edu/explore/stories/evolution-commercial-flying-experience

Visualization of Air Traffic during Covid-19 Pandemic | by C K | Towards Data Science. (n.d.). Retrieved January 29, 2023, from https://towardsdatascience.com/visualization-of-air-traffic-during-covid-19-pandemic-c5941b049401

Visualizing More Than Five Million Flights. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2023, from https://www.tableau.com/de-de/blog/visualizing-more-five-million-flights