Alumni

With the future growth in amount of flight movements in the aviation sector, efficient use of the airport resources are getting more and more important. In 2019 it was seen that the declared runway capacity at Schiphol airport is not reached during the outbound peaks. Previous research showed that the aircraft type (Wake turbulence category) influences the runway capacity. With the use the A-CDM principle, the outbound phase at Schiphol airport is analysed. This way the time spent, between the time references (A-CDM Milestones), for each Wake turbulence category is analysed and compared. This will provide an insight on the behaviour of these aircraft types, and indicates a possible significant difference/bottleneck. Besides the active runway combinations are analysed during these outbound peaks.

Graduated: July 2020

At Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, the outbound planning is created by the Collaborative Pre-Departure Sequence Planner (CPDSP). Currently, this outbound planning is fluctuating because of frequent updates of the Target Off-Blocks Time (TOBT). Having a dynamical outbound planning could create in a loss of valuable outbound capacity and increasing the risks in regulated flights by EUROCONTROL. To reduce the occurrence of frequent TOBT updates, different business rules have been analyzed for the auto-TOBT update mechanism. This mechanism updates the Target Off-Blocks Time automatically once the inbound flight has an assigned landing runway until the moment the aircraft is in-blocks or the Main Ground Handler updated the TOBT manually. The analyzed business rules had different characteristics related to the frequency of TOBT updates and the accuracy of this target time. Those two main characteristics were required to analyze to be able to have an overview which business rule creates less updates but having the same quality as in the current situation.

Graduated: July 2020

In the past decades, the air traffic growth has resulted in increasingly complex situations involving more aircraft simultaneously. In order to guarantee safety is maintained within the increasingly crowded airspace, new solutions are expected. In collaboration with the LVNL, an Inbound Traffic Support System interface was developed. The goal of the interface is to visualize the possible solutions of an area controller’s task of merging aircraft towards a restricted waypoint in the current work domain, such that the impact of decisions made can be foreseen.  By showing the affordances of the work domain, the display keeps the air traffic controller as the active decision maker rather than issuing advisories.

Graduated: October 2019 

As of today, the aviation parties at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol are connected to the European network managed by Eurocontrol NMOC (Network Manager Operation Centre) through its local Airport CDM (Collaborative Decision Making) process. Within the Dutch aviation industry, many stakeholders are involved in the air traffic process, of which three of the main stakeholders are KLM, AAS and the LVNL. Each stakeholder can influence a certain part of the air traffic process, for which they create their own planning. Other parts of the air traffic process, over which a stakeholder has no control, are influenced, and planned on, by the remaining stakeholders. Since the air traffic process is a continuous cycle all stakeholders involved carry dependencies on one another, which also influences the planning each stakeholder makes. To succeed both the overall air traffic process and thus the stakeholders’ individual process, a collaboration among stakeholders is required. The goal of this research is to determine which planning inefficiencies may arise as a result of the different points of interests of the stakeholders within the Dutch aviation sector. By determining these inefficiencies, it can be researched how these can be eliminated, which could eventually benefit the capacity problem. For the purpose of this research the focus will primarily be on KLM flights.

Graduated: August 2019

In this thesis research, dutch aircraft noise model (NRM) calculations are compared to measurements to analyse the aircraft classification used in the model. To do so, a new implementation of the model has been set up to calculate with LVNL trackdata and NOMOS measurement data. First, the classification approach is analysed as prescribed, which shows clustering of aircraft types when compared to measurements. After, the theoretical input data as prescribed for the model is assessed and replaced by real data for each type specific. This leads to improvements of the model calculations when compared to measurements and shows that aircraft-specific flight-information would improve the model significantly. Concluding, it is shown that aircraft noise models strongly rely on the quality of the input data. Current input data shows certain mismatches with respect to reality, resulting in differences between calculations and measurements. However, the calculations can give valuable insights in the effect of operations on the overall noise exposure.

Graduated: July 2019

A new Arrival Management system, called Advanced Schiphol Arrival Planner (ASAP), was implemented in 2018 to regulate the arrival traffic flows at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (AAS). ASAP aims to be an assisting support tool for the Approach Planner (APLN)  to monitor and safety merge inbound traffic flows in the Dutch Terminal Control Area (TMA). To validate the implementation of ASAP diverse analysis have been run. This work describes some recent insights and findings regarding the performance and interaction between users (ATCs) and ASAP. Particular attention is placed to establish the moment and type of interaction between the different users. The performance of the tool was evaluated using four main performance indicators; Expected Approach Time (EAT) adherence, slot adherence, holding ratio, influence of APLN.

Graduated: July 2019