Total Airport Management suite project successfully concluded
Stuttgart has been celebrating a successful management project.

Co-funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the TAMS project follows the idea of a holistic operational concept to create one overall airport steering process, including its integrated technological execution between ATC, airport and airline operators. The joint solution is based on an open modular software suite and integrates air and landside airport processes. It thus provides solution support for complex logistical, procedural and organisational processes at a hub airport.

As the basis for the development, an Airport Collaborative Decision Making 16-milestone integration was created between an ATC queue management system (Arrivals and Departures Manager), a surface management system (Surface Manager/ASMGCS) and a turnaround management system (TMAN-HubControl) following the EUROCONTROL concept of monitoring and guiding the entire flight trajectory.

The partners involved in the project included ATRiCS, Barco Orthogon, INFORM, the German Aerospace Centre, Siemens and Stuttgart airport. Bargo Orthogon provided the Arrivals and Departures Manager to improve airspace and runway capacity balancing. INFORM contributed its extensive experience with airport system technology in the areas of ground handling processes, process and resource optimisation and airport operational databases. The GS HubControl system monitors and guides the progress of each aircraft turnaround in real-time and foresees bottlenecks and possible delays. ATRiCS supported the project by contributing its unique Surface Management System for the control of taxi-ing operations. Further, DLR in co-operation with ATRiCS, Barco Orthogon and INFORM, developed a complete airport simulation, handling 200 flights within a six hour timeframe. DLR also added its PaxMan passenger manager prototype, which integrates the passenger processes with aircraft processes to avoid unnecessary waiting times and minimises the number of misconnected flights. Stuttgart airport contributed its experience in advanced and profitable handling processes.

The TAMS project results actually exceed airport CDM, since it integrates airside and landside processes and their conceptual and technological dependencies in real time in a balanced manner. Furthermore, TAMS extends the time horizon of the A-CDM scope. INFORM, ATRiCS and Barco Orthogon spearheaded a real-time, data-based What if? capability, enabling the actors of NASPs, airports, airlines and ground handling companies to jointly look at the effect of their operational intentions four to six hours in advance. The solution thus provides a detailed pro-active decision making capability and visualisation.

The integration of various air and landside airport sub-processes with one Airport Operations Control Centre not only boosts the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of airport operations, but also lessens their impact on the environment. The TAMS validation demonstrated the added value available for air traffic systems: enhanced process predictability reduces delays, fuel consumption and the resulting CO2 emissions, as well as simultaneously increasing passenger convenience.

A ceremony to celebrate the successful completion of the project was held at Stuttgart airport, resulting in positive feedback from national and international aviation experts.