Industry Leaders Assemble at IHS Jane’s ATC Awards Ceremony

IHS Inc., the leading global source of critical information and insight, today held the IHS Jane’s 14th annual ATC Awards ceremony during the CANSO ATM Dinner in Madrid. A cross-section of the air transport community assembled to acclaim leading projects and cutting-edge technological developments.

This year's contenders included major consortia as well as relative newcomers to the airspace management industry, with more than 40 nominations received in total. These were shortlisted and pared down to the winning entry in each category by a panel of experienced judges, drawn from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Eurocontrol, the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO), the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations (IFATCA) and IHS Jane’s.

“As in each year since the ATC Awards began in 2001, we received award nominations of an extremely high standard, and we are grateful to everyone who took the time to nominate their company or product,” said Ben Vogel, editor of IHS Jane’s Airport Review. “The strong nominations reflect the strength of the air traffic control and air traffic management sectors,” he continued.

Jeff Poole, Director General, CANSO, said: “It is fitting that the winners of the IHS Jane’s ATC Awards reflect the theme of World ATM Congress 2014 of ‘Delivering the Future’. They are delivering important improvements in safety, efficiency, environmental savings, and information sharing. While the industry has a strong focus on delivery, it is important also to take time to recognise and celebrate our achievements. All those shortlisted can be proud of their achievements in driving change, harnessing innovative technologies and delivering efficiencies and improvements for their customers.”

The Winners
The winners in the six categories are summarised below, with honourable mentions for those entrants who came close.

Environment Award: Eurocontrol and Thomas Cook Airlines – Network Manager Flight Efficiency Initiative

Eurocontrol in its Network Manager role launched the Flight Efficiency Initiative in early 2013, as a means of helping ANSPs and airlines to meet targets set under the Performance Framework of Single European Sky II. Eurocontrol worked with Thomas Cook Airlines to offer the most efficient routes on any given day, based on a system-wide picture of European route network capacity. After the initial operational usage by Thomas Cook produced environmental, operational and financial benefits, 20 other airlines began to use the Flight Efficiency tool.

Shortlisted:

• Air France, HOP!, Alitalia, DSNA, ENAV, skyguide – Week End Free Route (WE FREE)
• EGTS International – Electric Green Taxiing System
• NATS UK, CAA and partners – Future Airspace Strategy Industry Implementation Group (FASIIG)
  
  

Enabling Technology Award: SESAR JU and partners – SESAR SWIM Outreach

The second SESAR SWIM Master Class (June – November 2013) involved 64 teams actively demonstrating their SWIM-enabled applications. The 2013 edition attracted an increased number of ATM service providers, thus offering development teams a wider scope of data and services to exploit in their SWIM-enabled applications or web services. As part of this initiative no less than 39 proposals for services and applications were submitted.

Shortlisted:

• Austro Control, Saab Sensis – Austria Wide Area Multilateration
• DECEA, Brazil – SIRIUS PBN Operations
• Irish Aviation Authority – Point Merge

Service Provision Award: ASIOACG – Arabian Sea-Indian Ocean UPR Geographic Zone

The member air navigation service providers (ANSPs) of the Arabian Sea Indian Ocean ATS Coordination Group (ASIOACG), working with the airline industry, have established a User Preferred Route (UPR) Geographic Zone with safety, efficiency and environmental benefits. The Arabian Sea-Indian Ocean UPR Geographic Zone was launched in October 2013 – trials in mid-2013 indicated potential annual CO2 savings of 10,000 tonnes. ASIOACG comprises the ANSPs of Australia, India, Kenya, Madagascar, the Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa and Sri Lanka.

Shortlisted:

• Airports Authority of India – Operational efficiency improvements in high-density airspace around Mumbai and Delhi
• Eurocontrol, Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF) – Shared ATS System
• Nav Canada – Windsor-Toronto-Montreal WTM project

Technology Award: Harris Corporation – SWIM solutions powered by Data Exchange (DEX)

Harris has designed a network-centric deployment for System Wide Information Management (SWIM) called DEX—the Data Exchange—that is aligned with the ICAO Aviation System Block Upgrades (ASBU), NextGen, and SESAR goals and priorities. Harris DEX is a combination of hardware and software that enables an information sharing infrastructure with the tools and applications to consume and deliver content anywhere in the airspace management enterprise. With its ability to mediate and share information at the logic layer, rather than requiring physical, point-to-point connections, DEX greatly improves situational awareness. This, in turn, provides an evolutionary path from a tactical operations model to network-centric, performance-based and collaborative ATM.

Shortlisted:

• Comsoft – CADIR ATN directory server
• Frequentis – smartVISION
• Thales – TopSky Human Factors

Innovation Award: delair Air Traffic Systems – arosa PMS/de-icing

The arosa PMS and arosa de-icing modules from delair Air Traffic Systems are pre-tactical performance management tools. The arosa PMS algorithms are based on analysis of hundreds of thousands of individual arrivals and departures, this allows traffic forecasts not only in normal or best-case scenarios, but also during disruptive events such as in adverse weather situations or runway closures. The arosa PMS tool is operational at the Dusseldorf Airport Operations Centre, and arosa de-icing is operational at Zurich Airport.

Shortlisted:

• All About Signs – FLAT Light Taxi and Runway Guidance Sign
• Aveillant – Holographic 3D surveillance radar
• C Speed – LightWave radar

Runway Award: Midwest ATC – Kandahar runway efficiencyThe Midwest ATC Airfield Management team developed runway crossing spreadsheets, spearheaded town hall meetings, and conducted spot inspections of personnel and vehicles to diagnose shortfalls followed by a programme to address issues and implement remedies for runway efficiency. As a result, controlled movement area violations (CMAVs) at Kandahar Air Base in Afghanistan fell from 36 in 2011 to 10 in 2013. In 2010, the team identified a major issue of unauthorised runway crossings so developed and implemented a comprehensive Airfield Driving Programme that significantly reduced incidents. Unauthorised vehicle crossings dropped by 87% over the last four years, from 53,653 in 2010 to 7,223 in 2013.

Shortlisted:

• Avembsys – Ground Reality Information Processing System (GRIPS)
• DFS, Germany – PHOENIX multi-sensor data fusion tracker at Munich
• Searidge – Zone occupancy and intrusion detection

“Each winner demonstrates excellence within the category and all the winning initiatives inspire confidence for the future of our industry,” Vogel said. “IHS Jane’s received more than 40 nominations from around the world and the judges have selected the winners based on excellence within each category. As a result, the winning initiatives inspire confidence in the future of the air traffic management industry,” Vogel concluded.