The SESAR 2020 Advanced Demand-Capacity Balancing (DCB) project will create a powerful distributed network management function. To do so, it will rely, among other things, on SESAR layered collaborative planning, trajectory management principles and System Wide Information Management (SWIM) technology.
SESAR 1 improved the predictability and reliability of planning data, thereby reducing the Air Traffic Management (ATM) capacity held in reserve for exceptional demand-capacity imbalance scenarios. Short-term air traffic flow and capacity management (ATFCM) processes have further improved the flexibility of the Network Manager (NM) to tactically manage imbalances in the network. This resulted in a reduction in the application of ‘broad brush’ constraints and regulations. NM has developed the first step of a Collaborative Network Operations Plan (NOP) with initial integration of ATM stakeholder processes and airport operations plans (AOPs). The collaborative NOP is now a powerful tool to assist medium/short term demand capacity balancing (DCB) planning processes.
Notwithstanding that:
- The organisation of resources across area control centres (ACCs) and the scoping of measures, from local level to full network impact assessment, need to be improved, as well as the promotion of opportunity measures over those with cost implications for airspace users;
- The operational data shared in the NOP are still limited (in scope and time horizon), incomplete and insufficient for tactical and operational use;
- Building upon SESAR 1, the dynamic sharing of operational data needs to be expanded to enable tailored real-time network performance assessment and to facilitate collaborative DCB processes. Further development of automated tools, monitoring relevant indicators to assess DCB measures and monitor execution against plans will allow seamless DCB management processes involving airspace users, alongside airport and en-route nodes. This will permit a proactive identification of constrained points in the network and the application of collaborative procedures to address the situation with the least number of trajectory changes as possible.
The major objective of the PJ.09 Advanced DCB concept is to evolve the existing DCB process to a powerful distributed network management function which takes full advantage from the SESAR Layered Collaborative Planning, Trajectory Management principles and SWIM Technology to improve the effectiveness of ATM resource planning and the network performance of the ATM system in Europe.
This project is expected to have a positive impact on:
Capacity, which will be increased as a result of improved accuracy of estimated times of sector entry and the use of complexity assessment of ATCO workload for the prediction of demand and sector capacities. In addition, capacity will be improved as a result of improved predictability (AOP/NOP, network supervision) and ATM resource planning, the identification of capacity opportunities and the reconciliation of multiple constraints;
Efficiency will be improved by the integration of INAP, facilitated by the integrated network working position (iNWP), which enables DCB-ATC messaging, DCB what-if, to support CDM, the synchronisation process as well as the interactivities between local actors, AUs and NM activities. Efficiency will largely be increased by the availability of shared real-time operational data and a rolling picture of the network situation used by stakeholders to prepare their plans and their inputs to the network CDM processes;
Cost efficiency will be increased as a consequence of more accurate demand and workload predictions and the support of the ATM resource planning and DCB decision-making by performance parameters and trade-off techniques guiding the decision-maker towards cost-effective resource planning and DCB resolution;
Safety & Security can be improved as a result of accurate complexity and ATCO workload prediction and the availability of a shared DCB hotspot repository. It could also be boosted as a result of shared situation awareness (including meteorological phenomena) and the identification of crisis situations at regional and local levels. The high interconnection of information data flows is at the same incorporating cyber-attack risks and improving the ability to defend, detect and repair as soon as unauthorised access is detected by any of the partner systems involved.PJ09 will perform a cyber-security assessment on the AOP/NOP and B2B services involved in the DCB process to mitigate the risks;
