Disclosed herein are methods and systems for configuring a spectral loading pattern for a transmission line segment in an optical network, the method comprising obtaining at least one loading policy, activating at least one of the at least one loading policy, receiving a plurality of requested operations, obtaining one or more static datapoint and one or more dynamic datapoint associated with the transmission line segment, obtaining loading parameters and one or more loading algorithm from the at least one activated loading policy, generating a loading response according to the one or more loading algorithm, and changing a spectral loading pattern of the transmission line segment based on the loading response. The requested operations may identify operations to be executed in either of a current cycle or one or more subsequent cycle. The loading response may identify a subset of the operations to be executed in the current cycle.