Airport Surface Traffic Automation

• Because of a steady increase in air traffic, the Department of Transportation's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has instituted a number of programs that are designed to improve safety, reduce delays, and lessen workload intensity for air traffic controllers. The Airport Surface Traffic Automation (ASTA) program, which represents only a small portion of the total FAA effort, uses new technologies and advanced automation techniques to enhance the work of tower controllers, pilots, and vehicle operators. These new techniques are based in part on recent improvements in electronic surveillance, communications, and automation. Surveillance of surface traffic is improved through the use of target data from the new Airport Surface Detection Equipment radar (ASDE-3), or equivalent surface radar, along with the extension of the ModeS beacon system to the airport surface. Automation processing is improved through new functionality that will be added to the upcoming Tower Control Computer Complex. Finally, tower~to-cockpit communications are augmented by a system of automatically controlled surface lights and a ModeS two-way digital data link. A CCORDING TO FORECASTS by the Federal Aviation Administration (FM), the number of departUre operations at airports in the United States will grow by 30 percent during the 1990s. At a large facility such as O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, which had over 800,000 operations in 1989 and was the nation's busiest airport, this growth translates to an additional 240,000 operations per year by the end of the decade. To meet the challenge posed by this growth, the FM has initiated a number of major programs to improve airport equipment and traffic control procedures. These efforts range from additional runways (where possible) to the application of new technologies such as advanced surveillance radars, a satellite-based precision navigation system, and automation systems to assist controllers in the management of traffic. Even though new runways, signs, lighting, markings, procedures, and training methods are major items in the overall program, the application of automation techniques offers both the greatest opportunity to improve airport operations and the most demanding developmental challenge. The tactical control of air traffic in the United States is performed by controllers who are located in three types of air traffic control (ATC) facilities. These facilities, which are operated by the FM, include 21 en-route control centers, 27 Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facilities, and approximately 400 individual airport control towers (some ofwhich provide approach-control and departure-control radar ·services). Figure 1 illustrates these control …