’Cool technology’

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The latest docking guidance systems are pretty sophisticated, but not everybody is making the best use of what is available, as David Smith finds out

The reluctance of American airports to embrace visual docking guidance systems (DGS) is a mystery to John Parrish, vice president of terminal systems at Dallas/Forth Worth International Airport (DFW) in Texas.

Parrish can’t understand why the majority of US airlines and airports stand apart from much of the rest of the developed world in sticking to the old-fashioned, less efficient methods of docking planes using marshals.

“It’s true that docking systems are far more popular in Europe. Even some of our partner airlines in the US are reluctant to use the DFW system and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. This is such cool technology. For all docking systems, there has to be a   manual fallback. But, to wax philosophical for a moment, these days technology-enabled processes mean the human option should be the fall-back position, not the primary option. Docking systems automate the processes to make them better, faster and cheaper,” he insists.

DFW – the world’s ninth-busiest airport – chose Safegate’s laser-based DGS ahead of ones based on video analytics because lasers perform better in fog. “Extreme weather was the driving reason behind the installation back in 2005,” Parrish explains. “Thunderstorms and heavy rain can cause big delays. The alternative method is to have marshals holding up two metal objects during a lighting storm, which is not such a good idea. During a storm marshals can’t bring the planes in and they also don’t want to connect to the jet bridge, another large metal object. The result is the passengers will have to wait on the plane for another 30 minutes – which is irritating, especially after long international flights. But the automated system isn’t just for bad weather. It has a lot of advantages in fair weather as well as foul.”

The first major advantage, he says, is speed. One recent year-long study at an American airport showed average savings of 3 minutes and 35 seconds at gates using Safegate’s Safedock A-VDGS (Advanced Visual Docking Guidance System) compared to gates using purely manual methods. The main reason for the time difference was that pilots using Safedock could park their aircraft without waiting for ground crew to arrive. Workers then connect planes to ground power and unload bags that little bit quicker.

Parrish says that Safedock provides an authoritative source of information about when planes are on-block and off-block. “Everyone wants to know at what time the aircraft pulled up to the stop bar. The airport makes money when it’s on the ground, so we want to know when it’s parked in its spot. The airlines want to know, too, as they pay their crew a different scale based on whether they are performing flight operations or on the ground. Docking stops the clock on flight operations,” he observes.

The logging of all the data in one computer system helps airlines to increase their operational efficiency. Airports analyse the data for trends to learn where potential improvements may lie. “We have a schedule of what is supposed to happen and when, but some of the time something mechanical happens, some of the time bad weather occurs and some of the time the crew doesn’t show up,” Parrish continues. “Having accurate measurements bookends when we start the clock operationally, but it also answers questions like, ‘are we turning this aircraft around in a reasonable amount of time? Are the ground crew milking the job? Or are they doing a terrific job compared to nationwide standards?’ We can continually monitor performance.”

The measuring of trends makes for an improved passenger experience, too. “For example, we can use ‘trending’ to predict more accurately how long passengers will wait at baggage claim. Each guest is able to make an informed choice about how to spend that time. If it’s going to take longer than, say, 20 minutes, they could relax and have a cigarette or a beer.”

Accident avoidance

In developing the most recent versions of its technology, Safegate analysed data from thousands of docking incidents at gates around the world. It found five major causes of accidents and realised it was proficient at preventing four of them. Unfortunately, the one the company struggled to solve for many years was the most important by far – people forgetting objects on the apron, or stands. These damage the aircraft as they come in to park.

Safegate has now dealt successfully with this most troublesome issue, according to Jesper Svensson, Safegate’s sales director. He explains the five major causes of accidents and how the most recent high-end versions of Safedock developed the capacity to spot foreign objects.

“The first problem is pilot misunderstandings because there is no uniformity in the gate equipment. The second reason is when the aircraft identity is not what is expected. There is a big difference between, say, a B747SP and a B747-400. The distance between the nose and the engine varies by around 10 metres. If you position the boarding bridge in the wrong place and try to park an SP where you are supposed to park a 400, you’d have the engine in the boarding bridge. This causes a fairly high percentage of errors worldwide, but our lasers measure the distances to make sure it’s the right aircraft and others are stopped immediately.”

The third reason – and the second-most common cause of accidents – occurs when the boarding bridge is parked in the wrong position. “The Safegate systems monitor its position and if it’s incorrect, refuse to start,” Svensson points out.

He defines the fourth cause of accidents as “shortcomings in the apron control tower”. As an example, an aircraft often stops short, leaving the tail in the taxiway behind. Stopping short is typically not visible from the tower so personnel there might give clearance for a taxi or pushback for the neighbouring stand, causing the wing tip to collide with the tail of the other aircraft.

Finally, Svensson says that the fifth problem, which proved such a stumbling block for so long, has largely been resolved by improvements to the Safegate lasers. “Foreign objects on the apron such as passenger bags, tow bars, pre-conditioned air hoses or baggage trucks can cause nasty accidents. Our data shows that 80% of all accidents at the gate happen in this way.”

Since autumn last year, Safegate has included a product called Apron Scan in its top-range systems. “The laser is now capable of scanning for foreign objects. It’s ten times faster than in the past, and also wider, quicker and more accurate,” he promises.

A further development of the Safedock technology is that the latest models can take over some of the functions of the Surface Movement Radar (SMR) in low visibility. “In bad weather, coverage can be poor close to the terminal area. It’s a worldwide problem that about 200 metres from the gates they can lose track of the aircraft for a time, which is quite a scary disability. Now they don’t need to have that gap as the radar surveillance and docking systems shake hands and they can hand over the aircraft to the docking system,” Svensson observes.

Europe’s answers

In Europe, the vast majority of major airports employ an automated docking system. At Manchester Airport – the UK’s largest outside the London region – the Safedock A-VDGS system is also in use. Only contact stands are fitted with A-VDGS, so marshallers are still required for remote parking and to assist if the system is halted by an inadvertent obstruction, pilot error, technical fault or maintenance task.

Chris Formby, operations director at Manchester Airports Group, says the airport’s system is not fully automated. “The Manchester set-up requires activation on stand by trained personnel. Before activation, the stand is checked for foreign objects and any other possible obstructions. Once the stand has been verified as clear of obstruction and safe for operation, it will be activated. The aircraft type is entered into the system. At this point the stand is opened and the A-VDGS will operate.”

Formby sees a trend towards system integration at airports and says that Manchester is gradually moving in this direction. “A-VDGS is very flexible. At Manchester, they are already integrated with the air bridges as an enhanced safety measure. If the bridge moves during docking, the system will automatically halt. It will also halt the dock if a vehicle inadvertently drives across the path of the aircraft when on stand.”

He goes on: “With the advent of airport collaborative decision making (A-CDM), the systems will become further integrated with on-stand countdown to ‘off blocks’ time in order to keep the ground handlers on their toes and provide further information to the flight deck. There are many further integration possibilities with the system. It really can be tailored to whichever level you wish.”

Technology advances

One of Safegate’s major rivals, Honeywell, has also recognised the importance of systems integration. Raghu Seelamonthula, Honeywell’s airports global marketing lead, says: “Systems integration is the future. Airports are trying to move away from a single approach to a more integrated one from an operations perspective. Honeywell has delivered pioneering work already to a couple of customers where video feed from VDGS is augmenting the blackout areas of ground movement radar, especially in apron and gate areas.”

Like Safegate, Honeywell claims that its latest models offer technical advances on its previous two editions. “In 2012, we launched a new model featuring an HDRC sensor which can capture blinding high beams and faint return signals from the distant aircraft without the need for aperture or shutter control at a rate of 30 full frames per second. This means it has the ability to work in all environmental conditions,” he considers.

Honeywell’s VDGS has evolved from being a basic guidance system when it was launched to being an apron safety management system today.  Seelamonthula expects to see VDGS play a bigger role in the future as an apron turnaround manager to bring more predictability in operations as part of airside operations systems. He notes: “With the increasing adoption of A-CDM, VDGS will be the essential link between airside and terminal operations. We see VDGS as both an information gathering and dissemination tool between ATCs, pilots, airport operations and ground handlers.”

Over at Dallas/Fort Worth, John Parrish has ideas about how he wants Safegate to develop its technology. “I’m very happy with the product. It’s accurate to inches and very, very rarely goes wrong, if at all. The pilots are amazingly skilled and the docking system brings the aircraft right to the stop point every time.

“But, ideally, I’d like Safegate to drive towards more web-based, more cloud-based technology solutions, which I think they are doing at the moment. Right now, when we expand and add a new airline, or go into a new space, we have to be mindful that there is no conflict between a particular version of internet explorer, or between different versions of Citrix Client. More web-based systems tend to eliminate all those low-level technologies,” he says.

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