Farewell to Traditional Control Tower?

Farewell to Traditional Control Tower?

control tower

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While single remote tower control has already been deployed and has been considered a revolutionary concept of Air Traffic Management, the most significant impact in terms of meeting business case objectives, operational cost-effectiveness and the lowest possible total cost of ownership is expected to be generated from multiple tower operations and/or remote center applications.

Norwegian air service provider AVINOR with Indra and its Norwegian subsidiary, Indra Navia, as technology provider have successfully completed the first test to simultaneously manage traffic in multiple airports from a single remote position.

Late March, the first validation exercise was carried out to assess the air traffic controller officers (ATCOs) capability when providing simultaneous air traffic services to three aerodromes from an integrated controller working position.

The testing platform, based on Indra air traffic management systems, provided a fully integrated 3D tower environment recreation of three Norwegian airports, with simulated traffic, according to a report by eurasiareview.com. All relevant information and controls were available through InNOVA, the integrated controller working position which included radar traffic views, meteorological information, relevant airport monitoring and control, and electronic flight strips for the three airports.

A new short-term planning and management tool developed specifically for the validation includes a timeline that provides the controller officers with an intuitive graphical indication of the imminent traffic load based on up-to-date estimations of arrival and departure times.

During tests, three experienced ATCOs were individually exposed to three different scenarios with increasing traffic load and complexity. The exercises were followed by interviews and questionnaires on subjects such as situational awareness, human factors, workload, operational constraints, feasibility and tool support for further analyzing.

Initial results clearly indicate that it is possible for a single air traffic controller to operate traffic at more than one airport simultaneously.

Avinor’s Remote Tower Program will establish Remote Towers at 15 airports and control them from a Remote Tower Center.

See also our article on digital control towers