IHS Jane’s ATC Awards Madrid 2016

A look back at the 16th annual IHS Jane's ATC Awards handed out in Madrid last week during the CANSO ATM dinner with 46 nominations received in total. 

Contenders were shortlisted and pared down to the winning entry in each category by a panel of experienced judges from the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO), EUROCONTROL, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the International Air Transport Association (IATA),  the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations (IFATCA) and IHS Jane’s. 

“The 16th annual IHS Jane’s ATC Awards included entries from long-established organisations as well as relative newcomers to the airspace management industry,” said Ben Vogel, editor of IHS Jane’s Airport Review. “The judges have singled out innovative and collaborative projects that offer safe, reliable and environmentally sustainable ATM.”

“CANSO is delighted to host the IHS Jane’s ATC Awards for the 6th year,” said CANSO Director General Jeff Poole. “The winners demonstrate the innovation and focus on delivering measurable improvements that are transforming global air traffic management performance. I congratulate the winners as well as those that were shortlisted.”

The Winners 
The winners are summarised below, with honourable mentions for those shortlisted entries, which came close. 

Environment Award: DSNA and partners: Collaborative Advanced Planning (CAP)
French ANSP DSNA worked with EUROCONTROL Network Manager, British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair, KLM and Thomas Cook Airlines on the Collaborative Advanced Planning (CAP) process, designed to alleviate capacity hotspots in defined airspace sectors. Within CAP, DSNA suggests options that enable airline operations teams to avoid crossing into saturated airspace. The result is dynamic, flexible and collaborative ATM network management based on local expertise. CAP was launched in April 2015 and was available on a daily basis from 7 July. In the summer 2015 season, 650 CAP requests helped DSNA to improve on-time performance for 25,000 flights.

Shortlisted
Airservices Australia: Airport Meteorological Collaborative Decision Making (MET CDM);
NATS and Sustainable Aviation: Continuous Descent Operations (CDO) campaign;
skyguide: Greener Wave and Tactical Steering.

Enabling Technology Award - Lockheed Martin: En Route Automation Modernisation (ERAM) 
In March 2015, Lockheed Martin reached a critical milestone in the FAA En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) programme, after completing system deployment at all 20 En Route centres. ERAM replaces four legacy systems that were nearing the end of their maintainability. This critical technology (including more than two million lines of software code) enables the FAA to maintain safe separation of aircraft flying at or above 10,000 ft. 

The ERAM tracking function processes target reports from multiple surveillance sources (such as radar and ADS-B), replacing the single radar tracker. This provides more reliable tracking in areas with little or no radar coverage (such as the Gulf of Mexico). ERAM is also designed to improve flight plan processing. It creates a four-dimensional trajectory for each flight, from takeoff to landing, which aids controller situational awareness and decision-making.

Shortlisted
EUROCONTROL: Call Sign Similarity Project/Call Sign Similarity Tool;
Inmarsat Aviation: Global flight tracking demonstration;
Thales, NATS, NLR: Project CLAIRE - civil airspace integration of RPAS in Europe.

Service Provision Award - Isavia: Contiguous oceanic surveillance corridor for Iceland, Faroe Islands, Greenland
Using ADS-B and radar data from Iceland, Faroe Islands, and Greenland, Isavia now provides unified and hybrid operational surveillance coverage in the Reykjavik Control Area. The Icelandic ANSP has established a transatlantic surveillance corridor bridging Europe and North America, delivering efficiency, safety and environmental benefits for users of North Atlantic airspace. Landmarks in 2015 included: first operational use of ADS-B from the Faroe Islands (April); a first feed from Comsoft ADS-B stations in Greenland, shown on controller screens (June); and first operational use of ADS-B procedures in non-radar areas (October).

Shortlisted
COOPANS Alliance of five ANSPs: international partnership for joint, innovative, harmonised system development; 
IAA, Isavia, Rohde & Schwarz: Shannon Iceland Radio Project VCCS virtual centre;
FAA: Confidential Information Share Program (CISP).

Technology Award - Saab and LFV: First operational approved remote tower service in the world
Saab and Swedish ANSP LFV pioneered the development of remote tower technology for air traffic control. Their Remote Tower Services (RTS) programme passed a major landmark in April 2015 when Örnsköldsvik became the first airport in the world to operate with a remote tower 150 km away in Sundsvall. Remote sensor technology creates a 360° view of the airfield, exactly replicating the sights and sounds from a conventional control tower. A high bandwidth connection streams the data to a control suite equipped with Saab displays, electronic flight strips, and communications equipment. 

Saab supplied a second RTS system in late 2015 for Sundsvall-Timrå Airport, with Linköping Airport due to follow in 2016. Enhancements to RTS include the capability to operate multiple airports from a single controller working position, track labelling, overlays, and vehicle tracking.

Shortlisted
Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace and Avinor: Ninox Remote Tower System;
NAV CANADA: Mandatory Briefing Application;
Quintiq: ATC Planner.

Innovation Award - Snowflake Software: Laminar Data SWIM Cloud environment
Laminar Data from Snowflake Software was launched in August 2015 as a secure public and private cloud-based platform for managing, sharing and monetising aeronautical data. As the first commercial SWIM Cloud environment, Laminar Data allows all potential users (civil, military, government or private sector) to participate in a SWIM solution or a SWIM development by focusing on the ‘value add’ of their own particular products or services, without needing to engage with the complexities and technicalities of SWIM specifications. This levels the playing field so that major corporations and SMEs can participate in SWIM data provision or SWIM application deployment.

Shortlisted
Airtel ATN: MTP-400 ruggedised, portable Mobile VHF data link test system; 
ATRiCS: TowerPad integrated controller working position;
ERA: SQUID sensor for surface safety.

Runway Award - EUROCONTROL, Heathrow Airport, Lockheed Martin, NATS: Time-Based Separation (TBS)
EUROCONTROL, Heathrow Airport, Lockheed Martin and NATS worked together on a Time Based Separation (TBS) project for aircraft arriving at the UK airport. To counteract the effect of wind on the landing rate and provide resilience for airport operations, TBS replaces distance separations with time separations. TBS uses live data from the aircraft to dynamically calculate the headwind effect on final approach, to determine the optimal safe wake vortex spacing between aircraft.  

Real-time separation indicators are provided to controllers to assist with managing final approach separations. Full use of TBS at Heathrow began in March 2015. TBS will be expanded by NATS and Lockheed Martin to incorporate the latest concept developments being validated in SESAR Project 6.8.1.

Shortlisted
Avinor and Harris Orthogon: OSYRIS Arrival Manager supporting Avinor’s TMA Point Merge system;
DFS, Munich, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Berlin Brandenburg, Stuttgart, and Hamburg airports: A-CDM@GER harmonisation initiative;
FAA Data Comm programme: Transitioning from a dependency on voice.

Special Achievement Award
This year a Special Achievement Award was given to EUROCONTROL for 20 years of central flow management (1995-2015). This optimises the efficient use of European airspace: a single management centre represents 41 European countries working together to balance demand and supply throughout the region’s upper airspace, to support safe and efficient air travel. 
Since EUROCONTROL created the Central Flow Management Unit in 1995, it has managed a 68 percent traffic increase and a network capacity increase of 112 percent. It has saved more than 280 million minutes in en route ATFM delays, saving airlines €20 billion.

The Awards ceremony was held at the Galería de Cristal (Palacio de Cibeles) in Madrid.