A Systemic Model of Atm Safety: the Integrated Risk Picture

There are many new concepts being developed for future ATM, e.g. conflict detection and resolution systems, new traffic management and airport throughput systems, etc. Each can have its own safety assessment and assurance programme. But the future vision of e.g. 2020, may involve a number of such new tools or systems or concepts. This raises a number of questions: • What is the safety assessment of the overall system? • How might these new elements interact? • Are there negative interactions that can be avoided, or even positive interactions, as yet unplanned into the system design concept, which could yield extra safety? • Where are the strong and weak safety areas in the overall system? • Is the resultant system risk sensitive to the sequence and timing of implementation? These are not easy questions, but deserve an answer. Therefore an Integrated Risk Picture (IRP) is being developed within EUROCONTROL which has as its scope gate-to-gate operations. This development is closely co-ordinated with the FAA within the scope of the FAA/EUROCONTROL Action Plan 15 on Safety. What is being achieved in this paper is the description of the baseline risk picture for 2005 and the risk picture for 2012 (predictive mode for the Single European Sky implementation). Lessons learnt related to practical techniques for risk analysis are provided as well.