Congrats on getting access to real world European flight plans, seems like that has been difficult for a while now!
My main issue with this, particularly as a Vatsim controller, is the order they are suggested. Just because a route has been used in real life does not mean it is sensible for the pilot to fly nor for ATC to manage efficiently.
Real-world routes are now automatically retrieved and prioritised above routes already manually IFPS validated and submitted to the database. This undoes a lot of work that has been done to manage ATC preferred routes. Real-world factors such as activated military areas (which are rare on Vatsim), overflight fees (virtual airspace is free), outdated NATs, or particularly unfavourable winds, now lead to unusual routes being promoted above more “ideal“ routes for Vatsim/offline use. Some of the imported routes clip sectors and contain less convenient sequences of waypoints triggering more coordination and increasing controller workload. See some examples below:
Majority of southeast-bound flights from ENGM now route via VIPPA (which is already close to overloaded) and Copenhagen FIR instead of OKSAT due higher overflight fees in Sweden FIR, putting more pressure on Oslo APP/ACC sectors:
A solution could be to reorder and suggest the manually IFPS validated routes above Real World routes. These routes would still be clearly marked and available for those who wish to use them, but moderating becomes a lot more manageable.
I’m eager to hear any other opinions or solutions.
I have to agree, “current” IFPS routes should have higher priority than real-world routes. Expired ones could/should probably remain below real-world routes.
This could/should also be applicable to FAA airspace routes too, BTW, manually-specified Preferred routes having higher priority than IRL routes makes sense, IMO.
This is already sort of how it works. Re-submit a contributed route and you’ll see it move to the top of the list, since it will now be more “recent” than the real-world routes.
The prioritization between real-world and user-contributed routes is much more complicated than simply putting the real-world ones above the user ones. It’s based on the time the route was added to the database. The idea is that if real-world routes already exist, and a user submits a new route anyways, then it must be better than the currently available ones. But if the real-world routes were added after their contribution, they are prioritized by default.
The reason for doing it this way, is that the user-contributed routes system is FAR from perfect. At this point we have many users contributing IFPS compliant routes, and there are plenty of poor contributions that you would not want prioritized either. Not every user is going to be familiar with sector limitations, LOAs, flow control, or any other reason to prefer one route over another. And sometimes people make mistakes, or maybe they don’t understand IFPS validation completely but said they do when they applied for access.
But don’t get me wrong, the user routes system is still very much a net positive. It’s just not perfect, and we need to treat it accordingly.
On average, the real-world routes are more trustworthy, and therefore they are prioritized by default. You can still overrule them, but you just need to have saved your route more recently. And you can still flag real-world routes if they aren’t valid for whatever reason.
