Chapter 4 TECHNOLOGY Photo credit: Federa/ Aviation Administration 1 Contents The Airport and its Components . 60 Airport and Airspace Technology . 60 Guidance, Surveillance, and Control . 62 Microwave Landing System. 62 Surveillance Radar. 66 Traffic Management Techniques . 68 Supporting Technologies . 70 Airspace Use Procedures . 71 Reduced Lateral Separation . 71 Reduced Longitudinial Separation on Final Approach . 74 Separate Short Runways for Small Aircraft. 76 Weather and Atmospheric Effects . 76 Wake Vortex . 77 Wind Shear . 77 Noise Control and Abatement . 79 Aircraft Noise.... 8.0 Aircraft Operating Procedures . 81 Airport Surface Uilization . 83 Surveillance and Control . 83 Taxiways . 84 Apron and Gate Facilities . 86 Terminal Facilities and Services . 86 Terminal Building Design.. 88 Terminal Services . 90 Landside Access . 93 Terminal Curbfront . 95 Airport Ground Access.. 96 Applications of Technology to Airport Problems . 97 Capacity and Delay Problems at Selected Airports . ..............................100 Prospective Technological Solutions . .,. ...........101 List of Tables Table Page 13. Technology To Increase Airport Capacity and Reduce Delay . .63 14. Summary of NAS Plan Benefits and Costs . .69 IS. Airport Capacity Survey . ..............102 16. Airport Technology Summary . .................104 List of Figures Figure Page y. Airport Components . 61 8. Comparison of Microwave Landing System and Instrument Landing System . 65 9. Arrival and Departure Separations . 75 10, Effects of Low-Altitude Wind Shear . 78 11. Airport Landside Functional Flow . 87 12. Airport Terminal Design Concepts . 89 3.3. Federal Capital Funding of Airports and Related Facilities . 95 14. Zurich Airport and Rail Terminal Complex . 98 15. Off-Site passenger Terminal Concepts . 99 Chapter 4 TECHNOLOGY’ The airport system in place in the United States ease congestion by allowing fuller and more effi- today is extensive and highly developed; in gen- cient use of the airports we already have. This eral, it serves the Nation well. Still, there are technology includes new equipment for surveil- problems of congestion and delay at the busiest lance, navigation, and communication and revised airports, where facilities are not adequate to ac- procedures for using the airspace and airport fa- commodate demand at all times and in all condi- cilities. In this way, it is hoped that additional de- tions of weather and visibility. The Federal Avia- mand can be absorbed within the infrastructure tion Administration (FAA) forecasts that growth now in place, without adversely affecting sur- of commercial and private aviation could be con- rounding communities. strained by lack of airport capacity, which it con- This chapter examines technological measures, siders to be the most serious problem facing civil z either currently available or under development, aviation through the remainder of this century. that could be employed to relieve congestion and Recent policy statements by FAA acknowledge delay. It consists of a survey of possible improve- that, with a few exceptions, the direct solution ments in airport technology, with emphasis on the of building new airports and expanding existing circumstances in which this technology would be ones may not be practical due to lack of suitable applicable, the extent to which it could increase new airport sites, physical limitations of present the amount of traffic handled, and the prospects facilities, and concerns about environmental im- for development and deployment over the com- pacts of aviation on surrounding communities.3 ing years. Similar views have been expressed in two recent 4 5 In aviation, the term technology typically brings studies of airport capacity, and there is a widely to mind sophisticated electronic and mechanical held opinion that, while the airport system is ex- devices used for navigation, surveillance, com- pandable in the broad sense, there is little hope munication, and flight control. Such devices are of creating major new facilities in those key metro- clearly of interest, but for the purposes of this re- politan areas where air travel demand and avia- port, technology is interpreted in a broader sense. tion activity continue to outstrip available airport As used here, technology refers not only to new capacity unless airport planners can persuade sur- devices and equipment but also to new opera- rounding communities that airports can be good tional concepts and procedures that they make neighbors. possible. Also, many in the aviation community For this reason, the aviation community and draw a distinction between technology (meaning FAA have sought technological solutions that will equipment and sometimes procedures) and civil engineering (referring to the design and construc- tion of physical components of the airport—the concrete, so to speak). While recognizing that dif- IThis chapter is based on material prepared for OTA by Landrum ferent engineering disciplines and techniques are & Brown, Inc. involved, this report does not make such a ciistinc- ‘National Airspace System Plan, revised edition (Washington, DC: tion and considers the design and construction of Federal Aviation Administration, April 1983), p. 11-10. 31bid., p. I-5. improved physical components such as runways, 4Report of the Industry Task Force on Airport Capacity Improve- taxiways, and terminal buildings as simply one rnent and Delay Reduction (Washington, DC: Airport Operators more form of technology that will add to airport Council International, September 1982). 5Report and Recommendations of the Airport Access Task Force capacity or permit more effective and economi- (Washington, DC: Civil Aeronautics Board, March 1983). cal use of the airport as a whole. 59 —. 60 . Airport System Development ——. — THE AIRPORT AND ITS COMPONENTS The airport is a complex transportation hub gage handling facilities, restaurants, shops, car serving aircraft, passengers, cargo, and surface rental facilities, and the like. Loading, handling, vehicles. It is customary to classify the several and storage areas for air cargo and mail, often components of an airport in three major catego- separately located, are also part of the terminal ries: airside facilities; landside facilities; and the complex. terminal building, which serves as the interchange between the two’ (see fig. 7). The landside is essentially that part of the air- Airside components, sometimes called the aero- port devoted to surface transportation. It begins nautical surfaces, or more simply the airfield, are at the curbside of the terminal building and in- those on which aircraft operate. Principally, they cludes roadways, parking facilities, and—in some are the runways where aircraft take off and land, cases—rail rapid transit lines and stations that are the taxiways used for movement between the run- part of a larger urban mass transit system. Cus- way and the terminal, and the apron and gate tomarily, only roadways and transportation fa- areas where passengers embark and debark and cilities on the airport property are considered part where aircraft are parked. Because the airspace of the landside, even though they are actually ex- containing the approach and departure paths for tensions of, and integral with, the urban and re- the airfield has an important effect on runway uti- gional transportation network. lization, it is also customary to include terminal area airspace as part of the airside. In the discussion that follows, attention is fo- cused initially on those airside components where The terminal consists primarily of the buildings capacity and delay problems tend to be severe. serving passengers and is made up of passenger The landside and terminal areas are not trouble- loading and waiting areas, ticket counters, bag- free, however, and congestion of these facilities ——— 6 Some experts do not employ this tripartite classification. For ex- can have an important effect on the overall ca- ample, R. Horonjeff and F. X. McKelvey, Planning and Design of pacity of the airport. An examination of possi- Airports (New York: McGraw Hill, 3d cd., 1983), distinguish only ble technological improvements in terminals and between the airside and the landside, making the division at the passenger loading gates and including the terminal as part of the landside access is included at the end of this landside. chapter. AIRPORT AND AIRSPACE TECHNOLOGY Technological approaches to expanding airport building and the flow of vehicles on airport cir- capacity or reducing delay fall into three broad culation and access roads. In contrast with the first categories. First, there are improved devices and two categories, where the aim is to alleviate air- procedures that will expedite the flow of air traf- craft delay, the third category is intended to fa- fic into and out of the airport—i.e., techniques cilitate the movement of people and to reduce that that will augment airside capacity or mitigate air- part of delay incurred in getting to and from craft delay by increasing the runway operation aircraft. rate. The second category includes techniques to facilitate movement of aircraft on the airport sur- Thus, the survey that follows addresses the face. The purpose of these technologies is to move broad question of airport capacity, not just air- aircraft from the runway to the passenger loading side capacity or aircraft delay. The intent is to gates and back again as expeditiously as possi- examine ways to improve the overall adequacy ble, thereby shortening the taxi-in