23-06-2012, 04:18 PM
Airport Management Systems For The 21st Century
Airport Management Systems.docx (Size: 63.63 KB / Downloads: 61)
More and more Airports and Air Traffic Control Units are reassessing their “Information Technology Strategy “ and how to support their mission critical and to ensure that they have in place solutions that will make them sustained in this competitive Business phase.
Airports nowadays are moving towards open systems where information can be accessed and shared across a multitude of disparate hardware systems, operating systems and networks.
Senior management realizes that in order that the different departments contained within an airport to work in harmony, they must link and integrate their resources, people, equipment, facilities and information across the airport’s local or wide area network and where necessary on the web.
Air Traffic Control
In any air traffic environment data flowing in and out is normally via the AFTN. This comprises of flight plans and information on flights that the unit is handling, such as slot time requests, delays etc.
Typically, the required information can be entered in ICAO format and UTC and can contain the following information: -
• Aircraft Registration
• Runway Used
• Actual Time of Landing and Departure
• Number of Circuits
• Number and Type of Approaches
• New Estimates of Arrival and Departure
• New Flight Information
Flight Information Display System
This system is really the front end to an airport management system. It displays information to the public in a format selected by the airport. The displays are made up by the information being entered or by interface or triggered from other systems.
Staff Management Displays
Displaying information to the staff is a vital part of any management system. With the advent of PCs and LAN/WAN networks it is a simple task to display and update information to airport staff in real-time in whichever format they wish. Information can also be displayed via the airport web site thus allowing many additional people access to information such as Customs and Excise, Immigration etc. Gone is the need for the old fashioned small monitor staff displays located at strategic locations within the airport.
Conclusions
Airport management systems have the ability to ease the work load of staff and convey up to date information to the travelling public. It is very important to plan the data flow and to display the information in a format that can easily be read and acted upon by the various departments within or external to an airport.
As the old saying goes, a picture can speak a thousand words.