Understanding the challenge

Logistical overload of the airport’s maneuvering areas, such as runways and taxiways, significantly undermines its capacity to handle passengers and cargo. As a consequence, occurrence of logjams and postponement of aerial navigation goes hand in hand with unnecessarily wasted fuel and drastic environmental impacts. However, the enhancement of an on-ground traffic capacity cannot be achieved without the wise implementation of the system infrastructure responsible for optimisation of the traffic flows and its allocation within the airport. On a mission to handle the arisen complication, Bit collaborated with one of the largest international airports in Europe on the journey of designing a possible solution - the Traffic Management System prototype.

Making a long-lasting Impact

Given the inherent complexity of the TMS, the prototyping process started with identifying the three core components it would be drawn upon. After a thorough examination of the airport’s layout, the team agreed upon the significance of the intersection management that could be improved via providing the vehicles at a junction with an opportunity to “communicate”. Another pillar of TMS was fully dedicated to smart routing as a tool to decide upon the routes taken by vehicles.

This, in return, would be executed based on live traffic data provided by the central system: by informing autonomous vehicles on the subject of current traffic, carriers would be able to pick alternative routes and avoid potential congestion. Finally, our prototype incorporated prioritization: in the context of the airport’s magnitude, granting priority pass to some vehicles over the others must be an integral part of the TMS prototype.

Results

Unsurprisingly, months into relentless work of our researchers, and the benefits could finally be reaped. Through the successful development of the TMS prototype in the shape of digital simulation, we yielded astonishing metrics. Essentially, with the use of TMS, our client entity achieved a 33% higher capacity of intersections, whilst smart routing proved to reduce the average delay of a vehicle by up to 50% during rush hours. Priority vehicles, in return, exceeded their speed by 10%, also followed by a minimised number of delays. 

• 33% higher capacity of intersections
• Up to 50% reduction of the vehicle average delay during peaks
• 10% higher speed of priority vehicles