Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - APACHE (Assessment of Performance in current ATM operations and of new Concepts of operations for its Holistic Enhancement)

Teaser

APACHE is a European research project of the first wave of SESAR 2020 Exploratory Research actions that aim at contributing to the modernisation of air traffic management in Europe. These projects are funded by the SESAR Joint Undertaking within the framework of SESAR 2020 and...

Summary

APACHE is a European research project of the first wave of SESAR 2020 Exploratory Research actions that aim at contributing to the modernisation of air traffic management in Europe. These projects are funded by the SESAR Joint Undertaking within the framework of SESAR 2020 and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The project is carried out by an international consortium formed by UPC (Project Coordinator), ALG, UB-FTTE and ENAC. It started on May 9th 2016 and will run for 2 years.
 
Air transportation is a complex system involving different stakeholders (such as airlines, airports, regulation agencies, air navigation service providers, network manager, etc.) and with different (sometimes conflicting) interests or priorities. Air traffic management (ATM) encompasses operational procedures and human and technological resources devoted to safely guide aircraft through the sky and on the airports, and to manage airspace in such a way it can accommodate as much as possible the changing needs of air traffic over time. ATM is crucial for a safe and efficient air transportation system and must be continuously monitored and improved with new technological advances or enhanced operational procedures. ATM is evolving to a performance-driven service-oriented system and measuring the ATM performance as a whole is an ambitious and complex challenge. In this context, different key performance areas (KPAs) must be taken into account, such as safety, flight efficiency, environmental impact, airspace capacity, air navigation service cost-efficiency, predictability of flights, etc. and novel metrics must be seek in order to properly capture performance in each area. 

APACHE aims at providing advanced simulation, optimisation and assessment tools with the objective to measure ATM performance and capture the complex interdependencies among different KPAs. Enhanced and new metrics will be developed to assess not only current ATM operations, but also aiming to future operational contexts in line with SESAR 2020+ activities.  

Work performed

\"WP2 \"\"Scope and definition of the concept of operations\"\" was the starting point of the project technical activities and produced, as principal outcome, deliverable D2.1 (Scope and definition of the Concept of operations for the project). This document explains the objectives of the APACHE project and the methodology proposed to achieve them. It can be considered as the baseline document of the Project and defines the operational context which encompasses the evaluation studies that will be carried out.

WP3 \"\"KPI review and definition of novel KPIs\"\", split in three main tasks:
- WP3.1: \"\"review of current KPIs\"\", were different performance frameworks were thoroughly reviewed. In particular, a survey of key performance areas (KPA) and key performance indicators (KPI) was done by analyzing different organizations worldwide, including the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO), the Single European Sky (SES) Performance Scheme, Eurocontrol, and the SESAR 2020 performance framework.
- WP3.2; \"\"Proposal of new KPIs\"\", devoting a significant effort to enhance current indicators or even proposing new ones aiming at better capturing ATM performance. Across 9 key performance areas (KPAs), a total of 40 new, or enhanced, performance indicators (PIs) were proposed, with a total of 18 PIs variants (making a total of 58 proposed indicators). Among all these indicators, 15 PIs (+ 1 variant) will not finally be implemented in the APACHE System and therefore not assessed nor considered in the scope of this Project, due to its low level of maturity and/or to the lack of data required to implement these indicators. The APACHE System will finally implement a total of 25 new (or enhanced) PIs and 17 PI variants.
- WP3.3 \"\"Functional requirements and specifications for the APACHE framework\"\", had the objective to gather all requirements, which emanate from WP2 and WP3.1 and to produce a formal document to specify the software that will form the APACHE system.

As main outcome of WP3.1 and WP3.2, Deliverable D3.1 \"\"Review of current KPIs and proposal for new ones\"\" was produced, while WP3.2 led to Deliverable D3.2 \"\"Functional requirements and specifications for the ATM performance assessment framework\"\".

WP4 \"\"Development of the APACHE Framework\"\", split into five main tasks:
- WP4.1: a \"\"Trajectory planning\"\" module has been developed, based on previous background from UPC. This module is able to generate trajectories at ECAC level simulating some SESAR solutions, such as free routing (PJ06) or more advanced concepts such as continuous cruise climbs.
- WP4.2: a \"\"Traffic and capcity planning\"\" module is being developed from scratch by UPC, simulating the most important functions of the Network Manager. A demand and capacity balance algorithm, similar to current air traffic flow management practices, has been implemented together with an advanced demand and capacity balance algorithm, in line with SESAR 2020 solution PJ09.
- WP4.3: a \"\"Airspace planning\"\" module has been developed, based on previous background from ENAC. An airspace sectorisation module has been implemented based on current air navigation service providers practices. A dynamic sectorisation algorithm, in line with SESAR 2020 solution PJ08, has also been developed.
- WP4.4, devoted to develop a \"\"safety and risk assessment framework\"\" and conducted entirely by UB-FTTE over existing background tools. This module allows to compute several safety related metrics.
- WP4.5 \"\"performance analyser\"\", implementing the performance indicators defined in D3.1 and providing tools for benchmarking and visualisation of ATM performance.

WP5 \"\"Simulation and assessment\"\"
- WP5.1 \"\"Scenarios and case studies definition and data gathering\"\". One post-ops scenario plus seven pre-ops scenarios were defined with different case studies within each scenario to take into account different levels of traffic demand, weather conditions and geographic scope.\"

Final results

Within the activities of APACHE WP3.2 a set of 58 new performance indicators were proposed, organized in 9 key performance areas. This is considered a first contribution of the APACHE project to the ATM community by proposing new indicators that aim at better capturing Performance in ATM.

Website & more info

More info: http://apache-sesar.barcelonatech-upc.eu/.