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Arrival Load Balancer (ALB)

ALB is an arrival-planning tool for EuroScope. It helps controllers have a shared picture of inbound traffic and flow, monitor via-fix streams (STARs) and landing sequence development, and coordinate timing or sequence corrections before aircraft reach the runway.

In practice, ALB sits between the raw live EuroScope picture and the controller's and FMRs operational plan. It is not a separation tool on its own. It is a planning and coordination aid for live positions, team sessions, and event-style arrival management.

ALB main window

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Core ideas

Before going deeper into the site, it helps to know the main ALB planning terms:

  • EVTO: the estimated time over the relevant via-fix or inbound gate point
  • EAT: the estimated arrival time - calculated and used for flow and sequencing coordination
    • EAT is used for both planning modes as release time over the viaFix (typically STAR holding point)
  • ELT: the estimated landing time branch
  • PLT: the planned landing time in the current ALB plan

Two planning modes matter most in normal use, and relate to how the EAT is calculated:

  • EAT:LT is the preferred modern method and plans against the landing timeline
    • PLR Planned Landing Rate (aircraft per hour) - is the rate per airport ALB uses to separate aircraft.
    • EAT:LT now combines that PLR baseline with WTC-dependent adjacent-pair landing spacing and shows a demand-limited Expected LR forecast from the resulting canonical PLTs.
  • EAT:AR is the older rough fallback method and plans more directly by via-fix arrival spacing
    • AR Arrival Rate - is the rate (minutes separation) per ViaFix ALB uses to separate aircraft per ViaFix (STAR).

Feeder versus runway view is a separate choice:

  • it reflects the operational role and picture you want, such as upstream feeder or area work versus TMA or runway-side work
  • it does not decide whether the engine mode is EAT:AR or EAT:LT

Two estimate branches also matter and control the calculation of duration from ViaFix to Landing:

  • ETA:ES or ELT-ES follows the live EuroScope-style estimate branch
  • ETA:ALB or ELT-ALB follows ALB's own corrected estimate branch when that branch is useful

In shared use, one controller may act as FMR:

  • Flow Management Responsible
  • the controller who is treated as the authority for the shared arrival plan for a destination airport
  • the person who normally owns the main planning choices, sequence interventions, and shared timing policy

This documentation is meant to help with three slightly different kinds of work:

  • Operational Guide for controllers using ALB during a session
  • Configuration & Customization for users editing alb-config.json, layouts, timelines, and airport setup
  • Developer / Internals for maintainers working across the ALB code, release, and documentation repos

The installed package uses a small loader/runtime split:

  • ALB.dll is the EuroScope-facing loader
  • ALBCore.dll is the ALB runtime plugin

EuroScope should load ALB.dll.

For the controller-facing explanation of the current landing-timeline model, see EAT:LT Landing Timeline Planning.

Start Here

Operational Guide

Configuration & Customization

Developer / Internals

Support And Other