Company insight
Digital systems for each step of airport design and development
Building airports will always be expensive – especially if designers do not carefully plan for every eventuality before a project is built. But as one global firm is proving, leaning on sophisticated digital technology can offer extensive advantages, both during the design process itself and far into the future. Future Airport speaks with Michael Frost and Gustavo Mercado at Transoft Solutions to learn more.
mploying thousands of people across dozens of square kilometres – with dozens of competing interests amid the bustle of departures and arrivals – airports are among the most sophisticated systems on earth. And, with complexity, invariably comes cost. According to one study, it costs $30m to build just three kilometres of runaway. Given major hubs like JFK boast over 15km of asphalt, it quickly becomes clear how expenses could soar. That is true in other areas too. Ensuring a space that can safely cope with hundreds of aircraft – Heathrow sees almost 1,300 take-offs and landings each day – is a financial undertaking in itself. But get it wrong and airports could lose even more, or else need to pass on the costs to angry airlines.
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Given the scale and expense of these challenges, it makes sense that airport designers are increasingly turning to the power of technology. By leaning on computer-aided design (CAD) tools, as well as fast-time simulators, designers can get to grips with a space, and all the build permutations that accompany it, before a single brick is ever laid. Naturally, this approach offers a range of efficiency and cost savings. All too often, however, these digital platforms are only used during the initial design stage of a runway or terminal, being forgotten as operations begin. Yet, as one global company is vividly proving, exploiting digital design systems can be a boon long after the contractors have hung up their hats – for designers and other stakeholders alike.
36 All about infrastructure
Few people are better placed to explain the challenges of airport design than Michael Frost. An industry veteran of over two decades, since 2001 he has been at Transoft Solutions, a British Columbia- based company that offers innovative software solutions across transport. And while Transoft works everywhere from traffic safety to car parks, it is arguably in airport design that Frost and his colleagues do their trickiest work. “When you think about it, an airport really is equivalent to a city in terms of infrastructure,” he says. “And a lot of the infrastructure that you need to put in is more pricey than you would in a typical city.” By way of example, Frost notes taxiways, and how the costs of excavation and material are much steeper than for regular roads.
plausible. It hardly helps that airport design involves a vast number of stakeholders – sometimes with wildly different priorities. For one thing, says Gustavo Mercado, Frost’s colleague at Transoft, there are airlines themselves, eager for designs that keep flight delays to a minimum. “Then there are the companies that serve airlines – the ground handlers – that want to ensure they offload or load aircraft on time,” Mercado continues. “There’s also air traffic control that needs all of this to happen in a safe way,” to say nothing of noise-conscious neighbours and environmental concerns. As Frost’s comment on taxiways suggests, getting these calculations wrong can be seriously expensive, something by no means limited to building costs. If, for instance, taxi paths mean aircraft veer
“When you think about it, an airport really is equivalent to a city in terms of infrastructure. And a lot of the infrastructure that you need to put in is more pricey than you would in a typical city.”
Michael Frost
Nor do the problems of airport design end at mere taxiways. From hangars to service roads, de-icing areas to runways, planning exactly where it all goes requires intense concentration. Add to that the issue of clearance – for instance ensuring that aircraft wings do not clip lights or passenger bridges when turning – and that $30m figure quickly becomes
into grass or gravel, their gears can sustain costly damage. Unlike in the US, for their part, many European airports are themselves responsible for operating ground equipment. As Frost stresses, this means they really need to understand “everything that’s going on airside”. That naturally helps keep safety up and financial liabilities down. In a broader
Future Airport /
www.futureairport.com
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