APACHE has performed a comprehensive review on performance indicators, comparing the performance frameworks proposed by ICAO, CANSO, the SES PRU and SESAR 2020 Performance Framework, and has identified over 150 indicators for performance monitoring and management in 11 different KPAs. New (or enhanced) performance indicators have also been proposed aiming at filling some of the gaps identified in state-of-the-art methodologies. The project has tried to cover all KPAs of the SESAR 2020 Performance Framework and new (or enhanced) indicators have been implemented for the following KPAs:
- Environment: proposing new distance- and fuel-based indicators suitable for pre-ops analysis (in line with current state-of-the-art indicators), but also for post-ops analysis and only requiring surveillance and realised weather data (a clear progress beyond the state of the art). A wide set of indicators have been proposed in this KPA, trying to capture the overall environmental impact of ATM operations, but also trying to isolate particular contributions for refined assessments, such as inefficiencies only in the vertical profile of the trajectory, inefficiencies only in the route, inefficiencies due to the strategic layer of the ATM, due to the tactical layer, etc.
- Cost-efficiency (Airspace User, AU): proposing new indicators considering inefficiencies in flight time and flight cost and, in line with the previous point, using only surveillance and weather input data and trying to isolate some components of the overall inefficiency figures.
- Cost-efficiency (Air Navigation Service Providers, ANSPs): proposing new approaches to estimate the cost of providing Air Traffic Services based on some characteristics defining airspace sectorisation.
- Safety: proposing new indicators based on the intensive simulation of aircraft trajectories, coupled with advanced collision risk models.
- Capacity: enhancing classical delay indicators, in line with SESAR trajectory-based operations paradigm, and taking into account arrival delay.
- Equity: proposing new indicators to capture cost penalties per Airspace User.
Flexibility: proposing new indicators in line with SESAR trajectory-based operations paradigm.
The project has opened the door to a more integrated and holistic methodology to assess ATM performance, enabling the following potential application use cases:
- support the validation exercises of certain SESAR solutions, providing i) a unified and homogeneous Framework to compute certain performance indicators on demand (via web services, for instance); ii) assessment of interdependencies between SESAR solutions; iii) intensive model-based simulations, allowing performance assessment, sensitivity and robustness analysis in several KPAs; and iv) the computation of optimal (under different constraints to assess different KPAs, focus areas or specific stakeholder needs) trajectories and/or sector opening schemes on demand (via web services, for instance).
- support the definition of the high-level performance ambitions for the European ATM master plan, or even contribute to SESAR validation target setting;
- recreate tailored simulations to test and validate the appropriateness of certain performance indicators or refine some of them; and
- benchmarking/complementation of different Performance Frameworks.
