SubscribeCDM - Collaborative Decision Making - appears very often in daily talk of the industry, publications, conferences and official documents.
Eurocontrol, ACI and IATA have defined CDM, especially Airport CDM, as one of their primary activities, and they have started their respective initiatives.
So, what is the objective of Airport CDM?
A statement of Eurocontrol gives a clarification:
Airport Collaborative Decision Making, CDM, enables information sharing and facilitates decision making processes by ensuring that stakeholders are provided with timely and accu-rate information; essential for the planning of their operations.
There is no doubt that this step (i.e. enabling airport partners to make decisions on the basis of general accessible, precise, and actual information) is extremely important. It synchro-nizes the activities in the respective organisations and it is the precondition for an improved utilisation of the available resources.
But is it good enough to use the resources optimally?
Not at all! To use the resources optimally there is a need for sophisticated planning and optimisation tools. To meet the objective we developed a suite of A-CDM (Advanced?CDM) products.
This is the first and only product platform worldwide that enables planning and operational optimisation of the whole airside process of an airport. Our A-CDM system environment is in operation at Unique Zurich International Airport since spring 2003.
A-CDM working position at Zurich Tower
What is the philosophy of A-CDM and why “A” in front of CDM?
Due to the demand which often exceeds the capacity (especially in peak times), airports are becoming bottlenecks.
The main cause is the lack of optimal synchronisation between the stakeholders (ATC, Airport, Airline and Ground Handling). The lack of optimal synchronisation results in:
- Long queues at the runways and successive departure delays
- Arrivals on the ground without available parking positions
- Supply of tow trucks at aircraft which haven’t completed the handling process
- Missing of ATC slots
- Dissatisfied passengers and
- Ultimately loss of revenue
And this is where A-CDM starts.
The data provided by the stakeholders (e.g. real-time ETAs, ETDs, ATC slots, aircraft changes, ground handling state) is linked and fused in the A-CDM platform. The data is then used by different tools of the product suite to plan and to optimize the entire airside process independent of organisations and systems.
The results of the optimisation are then available for every stakeholder organisation to subscribe to. Once the results are fed into each stake-holder’s internal optimisation process (e.g. airport, airline or ground handler) they are able to optimize their own processes.
The partners are also integrated actively into this process. They report any deviation of the actual from the planned situation to the A-CDM platform. Deviations or missing reports automatically result in re-optimisation.
This procedure enables an update of the planning and guarantees the continuous availability of optimal and synchronized planning results. A statement of the users at Zurich International Airport also points out the positive effect of this anticipatory, synchronized planning:
Thanks to the display of planned off-block time and calculated take-off time via the terminal management system, aircraft crews are now kept constantly up to date with the flight schedule.
In fact, the binding nature of STD/ETD represents an advantage for handling agents, as they stand to benefit from helping to meet the specified deadlines and thus mak-ing sure their clients receive efficient and punctual services.
Thanks to darts, the new Air-port Steering section at Zurich Airport is able to maintain an up-to-date overview of every-thing that is happening in the apron zones, on the remote de-icing pads and on the taxiways.The availability of up-to-the-minute data permits smooth and efficient operations right across the board, even in the most adverse weather conditions, as we have recently been able to discover for ourselves.
This is why it is an Advanced CDM (A-CDM).
A-CDM platform
The A-CDM platform is the basic module of the A-CDM product suite. It is the only interface between the A-CDM tools and the systems that are used by different organisations so that no direct interfaces between any A-CDM tool and ‘external’ systems have to be established.
A-CDM platform
All data which is received via the interfaces from external systems is analyzed in the A-CDM platform and linked to one common internal data record. Thus, the data integrity is guaran-teed at any point of time. Data elements which are received by several data sources can be supplied with priorities. This guarantees a further data input for the A-CDM tools even when a system or an interface breaks down.
The data is provided by the external systems in different formats – ICAO and IATA. In the A-CDM platform the correct interpretation and fusion of these different data formats is proc-essed automatically.
All planning and optimisation results which are generated by the A-CDM tools are automati-cally distributed and forwarded to the interfaces of the respective systems according to the specific formatting.
darts – departure and arrival traffic management system
With darts the A-CDM product suite provides a system which optimizes the utilisation of the available runway capacity and reduces arrival and departure delays. The complete se-quence of arrivals and departures of an airport is optimized with regard to all external condi-tions.
darts has two components:
Arrival Manager:
The Arrival Manager is build by our partner DFS . It optimizes the arrival sequence for the available runways. The optimisation is primarily based on the flight plan and radar data and the current situation at the destination airport (e.g. departure situation).
Individual landing times and planned over-flight times for defined over- flight points, e.g. the initial approach fixes (IAF), are calculated based on the sequence. The sequence, the corresponding times and suggested actions are displayed at all relevant working positions.
Aerodrome Controller graphical user interface (electronic flight strip system)
Additionally, individual control indications are generated for the work stations in the ACC (area control centre), which enable the controllers to handover the arrivals at the IAF to the approach sector in time.
The feasibility of the planned sequences and times is monitored continuously. Each deviation is automatically detected by the system and initiates an update of the planning and an optimisation of the sequence. This means that planning can be guar-anteed at any time and consequently accurate arrival times for all partners can be provided.
Departure Manager:
The role of the Departure Manager is to determine and propose the optimal runway and the optimal take-off sequence for each runway. This is achieved using the flight plan and con-tinually updated data like handling state, ATC slot, and arrival situation. Based on the planned take-off sequence the corresponding take-off times are calculated.
This is then fol-lowed by calculating the start-up times of the engines and push-back times for terminal posi-tions. The calculations are based on a wide array of data including parking positions and air-craft types.
For all partners the resulting is the target times for their own processes. For example the airline now knows exactly when to complete boarding of passengers and ground handling knows exactly when to complete their process (e.g. catering, fueling).
If the partners cannot meet the target times, they are obliged to communicate a new esti-mated end time (ETD – estimated time of departure). This time is then taken by darts and new planned departure time is calculated and communicated. This procedure guarantees the availability of a consistent, valid, optimal, and achievable planning result at any time.
The departure manager of darts is the first departure manager in use worldwide. It has been operating at Zurich International Airport since March 2003. By the end of 2006 it will be operational also at Frankfurt International Airport.
sally – resource allocation management systems
sally is a product family that optimizes the utilisation of various resources. In the context of A-CDM the planning of stands and gates is of specific interest – the resources that directly influence the processes of arrivals and departures.
A flexible and user configurable rule based environment allows the users to plan the best re-source allocations for a specific time range, e.g. for one operation day. This avoids the time-consuming preplanning.
During the actual day of operation update messages are processed continuously and automatically. Based on these messages the planning is updated perma-nently, and potential conflict situations are indicated immediately.
Sally graphical user interface
The experience in Zurich and Frankfurt has pointed out the advantages of sally:
The implementation of sally reduced the staff costs for the stand planning by approximately 50 %, compared to the previous system. The planning on the previous day doesn't have to be applied anymore and the responsible employee can execute other tasks. The effective plan-ning time is very short.
The necessary effort to set up and to perform planning scenarios could be reduced clearly with sally due to the automated planning process. Planning results are comparable. This is a fact which is strongly accepted by our internal and external customers.
What are the advantages of our approach?
The decision making tools of the A-CDM product suite can operate as standalone or as one or more integrated modules linked through the A-CDM platform.
Each additional module builds on the results of other modules and contributes to the quality of overall optimisation.
Two main effects that can be achieved with A-CDM:
Movement-to-delay
Using A-CDM offers an airport the possibility to move the complete movement-to-delay curve. The working point of an airport is defined as the possible number of movements based on an accepted delay value.
Additional movements result in an exponential increase in delays. A-CDM redefines the curve which makes it possible to increase the number of movements without an increase of delays. Alternatively A-CDM enables decrease in delays for the same number in movements. Both options are critical for peak hour scenarios.
Both effects are being demonstrated daily at Unique Zurich Airport:
During peak hours up to two additional movements are generated Departure queues at the runways are reduced significantly from about eight to three resulting in reduced fuel burn (and savings to airlines!) and reduced emissions (and the environmental protection of the community surrounding the airport).
The A-CDM architecture allows for an incremental implementation of the tools into an exist-ing system environment. The existing systems don't have to be replaced. They can simply be linked to the A-CDM platform with interfaces and used further on. The existing investment is protected.
At the same time the modular approach does not require the customer to embark on the im-plementation of an all encompassing A-CDM environment. Add-ons can be installed at a later stage as the customer progresses in the development of its operation and additional capacity requirements emerge.
Outlook
With its products delair focus on the optimisation of airside processes at airports and the surrounding airspace. This optimisation takes into consideration the data and constraints of all organisations involved in this process.
In addition to these constraints which originally result from air traffic, major airports are limited in their operations by noise and emission condi-tions. As these influences and limitations increase in the future, the challenge to operate an airport optimally without suitable assistance tools is increasing.This situation existed in Zu-rich before A-CDM tools from delair were implemented.
Based on this background delair is already taking the next step with its cooperation with Lo-chard, the world leader in noise and flight track monitoring systems.
A-CDM module integration
By joining the forces delair and Lochard have created a unique product suite that cater for all aspects of airport capacity – from airport process management up to environment management.
