Date: 201812
Local time of day: 0001-0600
Location: ZHU.ARTCC, TX
Aircraft: Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Flight plan: IFR
Flight phase: Taxi
Reporter organization: Government
Reporter function: Enroute
Reporter qualification: Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Human factors: Confusion; Situational Awareness
Anomaly: ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Detector: Person Air Traffic Control
Contributing factors: Human Factors
Primary problem: Human Factors

Narrative: Aircraft X called on frequency; still on the ground at MOB requesting IFR clearance. At the time; MOBA was being controlled by Houston Center as an uncontrolled airport. The runway 15/33 were NOTAMed as closed overnight until XA00. This time is coincidental with the scheduled opening time of Mobile approach. I was about to give the clearance to the pilot; as checking NOTAMS on departures is not something we normally think to do; assuming the pilot is responsible for obtaining NOTAMS preflight. I remembered just before giving the clearance that the runway has been closing routinely overnight for resurfacing. I checked the NOTAMS and verified the runway was closed until XA00; about 10 minutes from the current time.I informed the pilot and he said he would wait until XA00 and contact tower for clearance as they would be opening at the same time. A query of the pilot revealed that the pilot did indeed have the current NOTAMS that showed the runway closure; and that they had simply missed it. The pilot also informed me that his scheduled departure time was after XA00; and that he was a little ahead of schedule; and that may have played a role in the fact that he; and also dispatch had not noticed the NOTAM.There definitely needs to be some clarification for controllers of our responsibilities in regard to departures. There was a possibility that the aircraft was taking off a different runway and could have still taken off in compliance as center does not specify a particular runway for departures. Only on questioning the pilot did it reveal that the pilot was unaware of the runway closure. During discussion in the control room; some other questions arose.For departures at uncontrolled airports; what are the controller's responsibilities for disseminating NOTAMS. There was a general agreement amongst the controllers present for the discussion; that Center Controllers as a rule; don't check NOTAMS for pilot's pre departure. Runway closures are a special concern and controllers should be aware of any runway in his airspace that is closed; but what about at airports with multiple runways. Are we required to advise the pilot of runway closures when there are multiple options the pilot can use?What about tower lights OTS. Are controllers responsible for conveying tower light outages to pilots departing uncontrolled airports? Taxiways? Gate closures? Where is the line for information that we are responsible for versus what the pilot is responsible for. Another factor that contributed to the near incident is the readability of the NOTAMS. Controllers have been complaining for years about how difficult it is to read NOTAMS. The dates and times are hard to decipher; abbreviations are difficult to figure out; and it takes time to go through a list and decide whether the particular NOTAM is applicable to a pilot. When I was checking the NOTAMS for runway closures; it took about 30 seconds to decide if the closure was indeed in effect currently. Sometimes NOTAMS are displayed but are not in effect until the following day. 30 seconds does not seem like a long time; but for a busy controller; it is a long time to divert attention away from the scope. One reason it takes so long is the date/time format. It is not something controllers; or people in general are used to reading. The combination of reading a date in a strange format; along with using UTC time; which sometimes changes the date to the following day can contribute to misreading; and confusion in determining if a NOTAM is applicable for a particular flight.Recommendations: Sort the NOTAMS on Center ESIS displays into categories to make it quicker to be able to scan a long list and make determinations of pertinence. Taxiway closure should all be grouped together - we ignore those. Tower lights should be grouped and sorted by distance from the airport. Current direction has us reading only outages less than 5 miles from airport. There is a lot of clutter that we must skim through; and it adds to the possibility of missing something important.




Synopsis: Center Controller reported difficulty reading NOTAMS and almost authorizing an aircraft to depart from a closed runway.