Influence of the Information Disruptions in A-CDM System on the Time of Readiness for Take-off

Abstract

The concept of Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) is a joint venture between Airports Council International Europe, European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, International Air Transport Association and Civil Air Navigation Services Organization. It was implemented in many airports in the world as a response to the growing amount of information necessary for the proper functioning of an airport. The essence of the A-CDM system is to provide information on stages of the flight and to collect them in a shared database. The aim of the paper was to analyze the process of generating, transmitting and using data in terms of possible disturbances and the effects they may bring for punctuality of the take-off operation. The research was divided into two stages. The first uses the developed model in the form of a Petri net for analyzing the impact of information disruptions in A-CDM on target off-block time (TOBT) which is crucial for the on-time take-off operations. In the second stage, a simulation model of the aircraft pushback and taxiing process was used to analyze the impact of TOBT disruption on the readiness to take-off. Following a series of simulation experiments quantitative results showing both these dependencies were obtained. It has been shown that even minor disturbances in the A-CDM can cause changes to the TOBT, and thus delay the moment the aircraft is ready to leave the parking stand. In turn, these small delays may escalate during pushback and taxiing which results in noticeable delays in the take-off.