Beating the Traffic jams

Without It, Our Airports Run the Risk of Turning Into Elaborate Traffic Jams, Both on the Ground and in Our Skies.

Growing Pains

in Recent Times Aircraft Orders Seem to Be Announced at Rapid Fire Rates as Airline Fleets Continue to Revamp and Grow. These Orders Reflect the Depth of the Growth in the Aviation Industry, a Growth That Will See Traffic Levels in Australia Double Over the Next 20 Years.

Filling the Skies With Increasing Numbers of Criss-crossing Contrails Offers Tremendous Future Opportunities, but It Also Throws Up a Diverse Range of Challenges. In the Face of Climbing Fuel Costs, There is an Increasing Dilemma in Finding the Personnel to Match the Growth. As Airlines Continue to Fine Tune Their Focus on the Bottom Line in the Face of Low Cost Carriers, Rising Concerns Are Being Expressed About Aviation’s Impact on the Environment.

In the Midst of the Melee is Airservices Australia, as It is Confrontedwith Providing Airspace and Airside Services to These Skyrocketing Numbers.

While Its Area of Responsibility Already Encompasses 11 Per Cent of the World’s Airspace, Nearly 20 Million Square Miles, the Growing Demands on Major Airports and the Airways That Join Them Provide a New Set of Challenges. And the Numbers Are Confronting. Last Year, Delays at Australia’s Three Major Ports Cost in Excess of $70 Million and Generated 180 Million Kilograms of Co2, the Equivalent of the Emissions of 40,000 Cars Over 12 Months.

At Airservices’s Waypoint 2007 Industry Forum, Ken Mclean, Airservices’s General Manager – Air Traffic Control, Addressed These Pressing Issues and Highlighted the Need for Increased Efficiency Across the Organisation. From People and Pollution to Traffic and Technology, Mclean Outlined the Way Ahead.

From the Ground

Up Airservices Australia’s Motto States That, “airspace and Airside, We Do It All From the Ground Up”, a Catch-cry That Reflects the Broad Spectrum of the Challenges Ahead. In His Address to Waypoint 2007, Mclean Cited the Many Initiatives That Were Being Undertaken to Increase Efficiency at Our Airports and on Our Air Routes.

Key to This is Making Airservices a More Efficient Entity, Offering a More Efficient Service Within a More Efficient System. As an Air Navigation Service Provider, It Has Commenced Aligning Its Provision of Air Traffic Control Services Into Three Environments: Upper Airspace, East Coast and Regional. A Centrally Based National Operations Centre (Noc) is to Be Commissioned in Canberra to Monitor and Report on the Nation’s Flow of Air Traffic. The Noc is Yet to Reach Its Full Operational Capability, but When on Line Mclean Advises That It “will Run All Central Traffic Management Systems (Ctms) and the Long Range Optimisation Flow Program Operating in Sydney. ” It is Planned That Within Five Years the Noc Will Provide the Central Air Traffic Management Operational Command for Airservices Operations, Including Times of Disasters and Emergencies.

A More Efficient Service Will Be Facilitated in Upper Airspace by Such Components as “improved Automated Conflict Detection Software and More Flexible Communications” and Systems That Will Permit Greater Use of User Preferred Routes (Upr).

Uprs Permit the Airlines to Take the Greatest Advantage of Prevailing Weather Conditions and Advantageous Winds.

This in Turn Equates to Shorter Flight Times, Greater Fuel Efficiency and Bydefault, Reduced Emissions. Uprs Have Been Flown on Long Haul Operations Across the Pacific for a Number of Years and the Goal is to Offer This Facility More Broadly, and is a Project That Mclean Advises is “well Under Way”. One of the Tasks for Airservices’s ‘seamless Airspace Working Group’ is to Ensure That Uprs Can Still Be Offered When Aircraft Cross Fir Boundaries Into Other Airspace.

Between Australia’s East Coast Ports of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne and to Several Asian Destinations and the Middle East, ‘flextracks’ Are on Offer.

Like Uprs, Flextracks Offer Routing Beyond the Limited Scope of Fixed Air Traffic Routes and Allow Operators to Utilise Beneficial Winds. These Non-fixed Air Routes Are Calculated Daily Based on the Prevailing Conditions Between City Pairs and Published by Airservices. Again, These Routes Offer Savings in Time, Fuel and Emissions.

Keeping It Moving

Uprs and Flextracks Are Only Two Devices That Airservices Are Utilising to Enhance Efficiency. Another is the Air Traffic Management Long Range Optimal Flow Tool (Aloft), Which is Currently Being Used for Arrivals Into Sydney in the Peak Morning Period.

Three to Four Hours From Sydney, Long Haul Crews Are Passed Information Relating to Their Arrival Time by Air Traffic Control as They Enter Australian Airspace.

This is Often in the Form of a ‘crossing Time’ at a Particular Waypoint on the Aircraft’s Route. Accordingly, the Crew Can Adjust the Aircraft’s Cruise Speed to Meet the Requirement and Hopefully Avoid Holding or Vectoring Closer to Sydney. These Latter Measures Often Occur on Descent and in the Lower Flight Levels Where Fuel Burn is Higher and Therefore Costlier.

On the Ground, the Ctms Aims to Reduce en Route Holding by Factoring in Delays Pre-departure. Controllers May Delay a Flight’s Departure if It is Predicted That It Will Only Arrive at Its Destination to Hold. Airservices Has Conducted a Ctms Trial in Melbourne and is Considering Its Use in Brisbane With the Closure of Runway 14.

Required Navigation Performance (Rnp) is Another Device Aimed at Enhancing Airspace Efficiency. Utilising High Precision Navigation Systemson Board the Aircraft, Approaches to Airfields Can Be Tailored to Avoid Terrain and Noise Sensitive Areas Down to Minimas Beneath Previously Limiting Prevailing Weather Conditions. Again, These Approaches Reduce the Need for Holding and Diversions Which Inevitably Contribute to Airways Congestion. A Successful Airservices Trial of Rnp Approaches Into Brisbane Was Conducted Earlier This Year.

Airservices is Also Looking at the Provision of More Efficient ‘gate to Gate’ Services and Efficient Pre-departure Tactical Management. Having Collected Traffic Data Earlier This Year and Subsequently Analysed It, Such Data as the Cost of Delays and the Resulting Emissions Was Forthcoming. It Also Highlighted Many of the Varied Factors Which Result in Enroute Delays. As Ken Mclean Recognised, Many of These Factors Are Outside the Reach of Airservices Alone and It Will Require a Combined, Consultative Effort With Other Entities Such as Airlines and Airports to Find the Answers. In Europe, ‘gate to Gate’ or ‘4d’ Planning is Already Starting to Take Hold. Looking at the Flight’s Planned Arrival at the Gate at Its Destination, It Aims to Work Back in Time, Factoring in All Predicted Delays on the Ground and in the Air to Offer a Highly Refined Start Time at the Departure Gate.

Technology and Tools

Within Airservices, the Task of Providing the Hardware for the Advance-ment of Navigational Services Falls to the Technology and Asset Services Group (Tas). Ken Mclean Highlighted a Number of Other Key Projects in His Presentation to Waypoint 2007.

These Include: the Rebuilding of Control Towers at Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra and Rockhampton Airports, as Well as Upgrading a Number of Other Existing Towers; Replacing the Existing Telecommunications Network With a World Class Digital System by the End of 2008 and Commissioning the Ground Stations for Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (Ads-b) for Operations Above Fl300; and Terminal Radars, en Route and Non-precision Navaids (Ndb, Vor, Dme) and Icao Standard Surface Movement Systems at Major Airports.

Projects Such as These Do Not Come Cheaply, and Over the Next Five Years the Capital Works Program for Airservices Australia is $694 Million, of Which About $597 Million Involves Tas Projects.

On the Radar

the Challenges Ahead to the Australian Aviation Industry Are Numerous as the Cycle of Growth, Services and Technology Continues to Evolve and Drive the Other Players Forward. Any Hiccups in This Cycle Can Manifest in Any Number of Ways on a Grand Scale, but They Ultimately Reflect as Delays to the Travelling Public. Along the Way, the Delays and Congestion Also Equate to Spiralling Costs and Pollution.

Airservices Australia is Tasked With the Responsibility of Providing These Services From the Ground Up and Coordinating Them in a Very Fluid, but Timeconstrained Environment. As Mclean Rightly Pointed Out, the Key to Success Lies in Improved Efficiency, Be It Through People, Infrastructure or Technology. He is Also Correct That the Matter is One of Genuine Urgency, Given the Rapid Growth of the Aviation Industry.

Without a Focus on Improved Efficiency by All Stakeholders, Be They Airservices, Airlines or Airports, the Potential for Gridlock is Enormous as Growing Fleets Attempt to Squeeze Into the Existing System. The Resultant Traffic Jam May Not Solely Be Found on the Way to the Airport, but More Significantly on the Air Routes That Cross Our Nation.