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COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES

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Brussels, 06.03.1996
COM(96) 57 final

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AIR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

Freeing Europe's airspace

WHITE PAPER

(presented by the Commission)

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. BACKGROUND 3
(a) Definitions 3
(b) The basic ATM functions 3
(c) The participants 4

II. AIRSPACE CONGESTION 5

(a) The problem 5
(b) The initial response 6
(c) The present state of play 8

III. THE SHORTCOMINGS 10

A fragmented picture 10
Lack of decision-making mechanisms 11
Lack of decision-making aids 12
Inefficient use of available resources 12
Lack of means of following up decisions 13
Lack of tools for implementation and support 14
Inadequate cost control 15

IV. DEFINING A SOLUTION 15

(a) The need to separate regulatory and operational functions 15
(b) The operational function 16
(c) The regulatory function 18

V. OPTIONS FOR THE SINGLE ATM SYSTEM 19

Option 1 : a "European monolithic structure" 19
Option 2 : a solution limited to the Community 20
Option 3 : a broader European solution 23

VI. CONCLUSIONS 25

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This White Paper examines the background to the current situation in air traffic management
in Europe, and the shortcomings of the present arrangements, before defining a "single
ATM system for Europe" and, finally, outlining the Commission's views on the best
institutional arrangements for the future. It is supported by an Annex which looks in more
detail at the different aspects of building a unified system; and four technical Appendices.

I. BACKGROUND

(a). Definitions

1.- The term "air traffic management" (ATM) is generally accepted as covering all the
activities involved in ensuring the safe and orderly flow of air traffic. It comprises
three main services :

Air traffic control (ATC), the principal purpose of which is to maintain sufficient
separation between aircraft and between aircraft and obstructions on the ground
to avoid collisions. However, this safety objective must not impede the flow of
traffic and must therefore meet the needs of users. Appendix 2 describes how this
service is provided in practice, and the division of responsibilities between the
various parties involved.

Air traffic flow management (ATFM), the primary objective of which is, again
on safety grounds, to regulate the flow of aircraft as efficiently as possible in
order to avoid the congestion of certain control sectors. The ways and means used
are increasingly directed towards ensuring the best possible match between supply
and demand by staggering the demand over time and space, and also by ensuring
better planning of the control capacities to be deployed to meet the demand. The
Commission communication on congestion and crisis in air traffic1 describes how
this service is performed.

Airspace management (ASM), the purpose of which is to manage airspace - a

scarce resource - as efficiently as possible in order to satisfy its many users, both
civil and military. This service concerns both the way airspace is allocated to its
various users (by means of routes, zones, flight levels, etc.) and the way in which
it is structured in order to provide air traffic control services.

(b). The basic ATM functions

2.- Air traffic management comprises two distinct, basic functions - one "regulatory", in
a broad sense; and the other "operational".

COM(95)318 final, 5.7.1995.

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 The first of these functions involves setting broad objectives in terms of the safety,
quantity, quality and price of the services to be provided and taking steps to ensure
that they are met. It also involves the allocation of airspace to its various users,
including military users, and all the measures needed to meet a wide range of other
policy objectives to do with such issues as environmental protection, town and country
planning, national defence and meeting international commitments.

The second function is the actual provision of services, for reward, within the
regulatory framework provided by the first function. This is a quasi-commercial
activity, the safety aspect of which is of course essential.

(c). The participants

3. - These services and functions are the responsability of individual countries, which have
put in place the necessary organisations and infrastructure by their own. In few cases,
two or more countries have used regional organisations to provide some of the
corresponding services and functions jointly on their behalf : in Europe,
EUROCONTROL's control centre at Maastricht provides air traffic control for the
upper airspace of the Benelux countries and Northern Germany under specific
agreements between the Agency and the States concerned. EUROCONTROL has also
been given responsability for setting up and implementing a Central Flow Management
Unit (CFMU) to provide ATFM over nearly all of Europe.

The regulatory framework in which the operational function is provided nevertheless

always remains a national prerogative, except when exist "ICAO Standards", which
are binding international commitments, or "EUROCONTROL Standards" made
mandatory by the Community (Directive EC/93/652 - see paragraph 8).

As a consequence, each State is almost entirely free to decide the level of service to
be provided and the means to be employed for this purpose, with the result that the
technology used and the results achieved vary very widely from one country to
another, making the overall system less efficient than it should be.

4. To overcome this problem, if only in part, most countries in the world have felt it
necessary to develop their international cooperation. They have done so on the basis
of the principle of "full and exclusive sovereignty of each country over its own
territory", as established in the Chicago convention of 1944 which laid the foundation
of the global system of international air transport.

In this context, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) was set up to
define and adopt the common rules - the "ICAO standards" - needed to make the
system interoperable so that any one aircraft could travel anywhere in the world. This

2
OJ N. L 187, 23.1.1993.

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 organisation, which has 184 member countries around the globe, is also responsible
for ensuring that the services correspond as closely as possible to the needs of the
users by adopting and amending from time to time Regional Air Navigation Plans,
including the European Regional Air Navigation Plan. It may, consequently, give
certain States responsibility for supplying such services to aircraft crossing
international waters. It is nevertheless a relatively flexible framework, within which
it is possible to notify differences from the common rules, while the undertakings
given in the Regional Plans are not legally binding.

Groups of States have also chosen to cooperate more closely at regional level and, in
some cases, to consider actually integrating their national services. It was for this
reason that EUROCONTROL3 was set up in 1960 by an international convention, to
provide air traffic control for the entire upper airspace of its Member States. This,
however, represented too great a transfer of sovereignty for some of the first of its
member countries : even before the Convention entered into force, France and the
United Kingdom reclaimed control of the whole of their own airspace, and Germany
later largely followed suit. Consequently, EUROCONTROL was given essentially a
coordinating role in planning and research, and its Convention was supplemented by
a multilateral agreement under which it was given responsibility for collecting route
charges.

In parallel with these developments, and in view of the lessons learned from over-
ambitious attempts at integration, ICAO reinforced the existing mechanisms for
cooperation at regional level by setting up the EANPG,4 which meets once or twice
a year as necessary and works more or less continuously on updating and monitoring
the European Regional Air Navigation Plan.

At a more political level the European Civil Aviation Administrations have

established, under the aegis of the Council of Europe, the European Civil Aviation
Conference (ECAC)5 where they can discuss and co-ordinate their various policies.

5. Up until now, despite the existence and continuing development of its competence in
aviation, the Community has no formal status in any of these organisations. It is only
involved as an observer, in certain aspects of their work.

Today, EUROCONTROL has 20 Member States (the States of the European Union except Finland and Spain, plus Cyprus,
Hungary, Malta, Norway, Slovenia, Switzerland and Turkey). The multilateral agreement on route charges covers these same
countries plus Spain.
European Air Navigation Planning Group.
ECAC is now composed of 33 European States, including all EU Member States.

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 III. AIRSPACE CONGESTION

(a) The problem

5.- Air traffic control was initially regarded primarily as a safety service, the constraints
of which in terms of cost and delays - which were in fact relatively minor - had to
be tolerated. It did not begin to be seen as a restrictive factor before the 1980s. Until
then, airports has been regarded as the main bottleneck and it was thought that the
development of air transport was therefore only limited by the number of runways
which the environment would tolerate.

In 1986 only 12% of intra-European flights were delayed by more than 15 minutes
(for whatever reason: ATC, weather, airline, airport, etc.), but the figure rose to 20%
in 1988 and 25% in 1989, chiefly because of infrastructure congestion.

This appeared inacceptable, not only because of the direct overcost of delays to
airlines evaluated at 2000 MECU6 annually, but also in view of the millions of hours
wasted by the travelling public, as well as the deteriorating perception of air transport
at a time when it faced increased competition from other transport modes.

Remedial measures, and the concomitant investment programmes described hereunder,

have considerably improved the situation in the early 90s: in 1993, the number of
flights delayed by more than 15 minutes fell back to its 1986 level of 12% despite
a 50% increase in traffic.

Since mid-1994, however, according to the Association of European Airlines (AEA),

delays have been increasing again and over 1995 the proportion of flights delayed by
more than 15 minutes was 18.4%.

Appendix 2 describes this trend and attempts to quantify its economic impact.

(b) The initial response

6.- These developments led to general frustration, and showed that inadequate capacity
in air traffic control systems could also jeopardise the liberalisation process already
under way and constitute a major obstacle to the free movement of persons, especially
in inaccessible and island regions. Accordingly, most of those involved demanded
radical action to deal with this problem, the resolution of which would bring positive
social and economic benefits.

Accordingly, towards the end of 1988 the Commission proposed a number of

Community measures in this field7.

Sources : IATA, late 1980s; INSTAR "Phase 0" report, 1995

7
COM(88)577 final. These proposals are now being withdrawn by the Commission.

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 The European Parliament also considered this issue and on 18 September 1992
adopted a resolution on the saturation of airspace8 which advocated the establishment
of a single air traffic management system based on the Community's institutional
mechanisms.

The Council did not adopt the Commission's proposals, however, and on 18 July 1989
adopted a resolution on air traffic system capacity problems9 which saw multilateral
cooperation within EC AC as the best way of resolving them; and called upon the
Commission to help EUROCONTROL to accomplish its tasks in this connection,
using Community legislative instruments as appropriate to ensure that decisions or
resolutions adopted by the competent international bodies are actually implemented.

7.- In parallel, the ATM community was itself taking stock of the situation and various
strategies were devised to improve it:

(a) In 1988 it was decided that ATFM activities should be centralised in order to
make the most efficient use of the available ATC capacities with the aid of a full
picture of supply and demand in Western Europe. EUROCONTROL was asked
to establish a Central Flow Management Unit (CFMU), which has been set up
gradually since 1992 and will be fully operational in the summer of 1996 when
all the national air traffic flow management activities will have been transferred
to it.

(b) The EC AC en-route strategy was adopted in 1990. This resulted in the launching
of the European Air Traffic Control Harmonisation and Integration Programme
(EATCHIP) for which EUROCONTROL was given responsibility.

The programme calls for the adoption of joint rules, procedures and specifications
to ensure the interoperability and interaction of the various national systems. An
EATCHIP Work Programme (EWP) has been established: in 1994 the annual
expenditure under the EWP amounted to 68 million ECU, and this will have to
rise even further between now and the end of the century. Its implementation will
henceforth be a standing EUROCONTROL function.

At the same time, individual countries have agreed to improve the capacity and
performance of their national systems in order to meet, by 1995 and 1998, jointly
defined operational objectives to ensure the overall consistency of investment and
avoid the emergence of weak links. The details of the various national
programmes make up the Convergence and Implementation Programme (CIP).
The ECAC countries have invested an estimated ECU 1 200 million per annum
on average since 1992 in the modernisation of their national systems, and it is
considered that a similar outlay will be needed over the next three years in order
to implement the CIP.

OJNoC284, 2.11.1992.
O J N o C 189, 26.7.1989.

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 EUROCONTROL and its member countries have also agreed to undertake a
major effort on research and development to define the concepts and develop the
tools required to meet foreseeable long-term needs. The aim is to bring about a
uniform European Air Traffic Management System (EATMS).

(c) Finally, in 1992 a strategy was established to improve the interface between
airports and air traffic services (APATSI). Responsibility for monitoring this
programme is shared between EUROCONTROL and the ECAC Secretariat, while
the individual countries are responsible for implementing it. Within this
framework, procedures have been developed for improving runway capacity and
a new body, the Central Office for Delay Analysis (CODA), is being set up for
collecting and analysing data on delays so as to determine their causes and take
appropriate steps to reduce them.

This pragmatic approach is supported by all concerned, particularly the airline

associations actively involved in EUROCONTROL's standardisation work.

For its part the Commission, as requested by the Council, has lent its support to the
implementation of the ECAC strategies through various forms of financial assistance;
and the adoption of a Directive making the "EUROCONTROL standards" mandatory
within the Community10 (see also paragraphs 28 and 29).

(c) The present state of play

9.- As already seen, there are now signs that the rate of delays is beginning to worsen
again seriously after the significant improvements in recent years. The figures for
1995 are amongst the worst ever recorded. On average, some 18.4% of flights were
delayed by more than 15 minutes over the year; in September, the figure was back to
the 1989 level of 25% (compared to 17.5% in September 1994); and, in December,
severe weather contributed to a figure as high as 27.1% (compared to 15.2% in
December 1994).

Although the cost of ATC delays to airlines had steadied at around ECU 2 000 million
annually despite the increase in traffic, this level remains extremely heavy as it
accounts for some 5.5% of the total cost of intra-European air services.11 The initial
conclusions of the study by ECAC, with the support of the Commission, on
organisational arrangements (INSTAR) showed that there is still considerable room
for improvement in the quality of the service provided. Taken together, a reduction
in delays and an improvement in the network of air routes could result in an annual
saving to airspace users of some ECU 2 000 million;

10.- Moreover, the costs of providing ATC en-route services increased from 1986 to 1993
by 60% in real terms (120% at current value) - that is, faster than traffic has grown

10
OJ No L 187, 23.1.1993, Directive 93/65
Sources: IATA and AEA, late 1980s; INSTAR "Phase 0" report, 1995

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 and accounted for 5.6% of the cost of intra-European air services, compared with
3.8% in 1986. The figure may even be as high as 20% in the case of regional
services.12 The INSTAR study also concluded that steps could be taken to curb
further rises in the cost of this service, thus saving a further ECU 600 million per
year in charges to airspace users. That is roughly one quarter of the total amount paid
today.

11.- At their informal meeting in Palma on 15 July 1995, the Community Transport
Ministers recognised the need for further progress in this field to achieve the
objectives of economic efficiency, social cohesion and sustainable mobility, as laid
down in the Treaty. They also expressed the wish that this White Paper, then being
drafted, would put forward proposals to that effect.

This view is broadly shared by the European Parliament, as can be seen from its
various resolutions on the subject, particularly those adopted on 27 September 1994
on air traffic control in Europe13 and on 14 February 1995 on the way-forward for
civil aviation in Europe.14 The Parliament considers, moreover, that the Community
should be more involved in the process. It has therefore called for the "harmonisation
and integration of the different national ATC systems, under the aegis of the EU, and
the establishment of the basic framework for a single unified ATC system covering
the entire Community airspace and controlled by a single Community Civil Aviation
Authority", and has requested the Commission "to draw up, as soon as possible, a
complete and detailed timetable to achieve this", reminding the Commission "of its
powers in the event of non-compliance by a Member State with the obligations that
are incumbent on it under the Treaty on European Union. "

This is the view generally taken, too, by a number of airline associations and other
airspace users, who have called for a full exercise of Community competence in this
sphere.

The "Committee of Wise Men", set up by the Commission in 1992 to work out an
overall European air transport policy, also echoed this view.

12.- As the technical and operational value of the ECAC strategies described here above,
is recognised by all parties involved, it is clear that the lack of further progress and
even the current deterioration is largely attributable to an increasing inability of the
present organisational arrangements to cope with the growing demands required of
them. The Commission has decided, therefore, to review what needs to be done in
Europe to build an efficient Air Traffic Management system so as to identify the
organisational shortcomings which slow down, hamper or block further developments.
The results are set out in the Annex to this paper, and are summarised in the

See Appendix 2.
OJ No C 305, 31.10.1994.
OJ NoC 56, 6.3.1995.

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 following chapter. On this basis the Commission has developed its views on the
appropriate organisational changes required; and how the Community could best play
its role in achieving these objectives while respecting the principle of subsidiarity or
proportionality and taking account of the experience and expertise of the international
organisations already involved.

III. THE SHORTCOMINGS

A fragmented picture

(Sections 3.2, 3.4.2, 3.5, 3.7, 4.1, 5.1 and 5.5 of the Annex)

13.- Establishing a unified European air traffic management system with the capacity to
satisfy the foreseeable needs in acceptable economic conditions would be a complex
undertaking requiring the development of new concepts and technologies and heavy
investment in equipment and human resources. But first of all, there is a need for a
full understanding of all the aspects if the right decisions are to be taken and
implemented in good time.

At the moment, the only means of obtaining this comprehensive picture is by getting
information from various bodies working in parallel - which only adds to the confusion
in an already highly complex field, and wastes resources and effort. Apart from the
Community's own activities, which are described in paragraphs 28 and 29, these
bodies are:

- EUROCONTROL and the ICAO European Regional Office for air traffic flow
management;

the EATCHIP Project Board, for en-route strategy, the definition of common
objectives, procedures and specifications and monitoring their implementation;

the APATSI Project Board, for the airport/air traffic services interface;

the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA)15, for performance levels and specifications
for on-board equipment;

NATO's Committee for European Airspace Coordination (CEAC), for the

co-ordination of military and civil requirements;

The Joint Aviation Authorities are an informal grouping of national aviation administrations, which deals with the saety of
aircraft and their operators.

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 the ICAO's European Air Navigation Planning Group (EANPG), for general
planning and liaison with neighbouring countries and regions.

The adverse effects of this fragmentation become particularly apparent when it comes
to standardisation or research and technological development, where different bodies
are responsible for different parts of what should be considered as a single,
comprehensive system. Management of airspace, air traffic flow planning or the
management of crises also suffer from the lack of a global approach.

Although ECAC could possibly be given responsibility for overall coordination, its
present Secretariat lacks the resources to perform this role; and in any case it is by no
means certain that this body has either the political dimension or the legitimacy to
enable it to do so properly.

There is a need to establish a single body capable of bringing together all the elements
necessary to develop a comprehensive European ATM policy.

Lack of decision-making mechanisms

(Sections 1.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4.1 and 3.4.3 of the Annex)

14.- Any comprehensive approach to ATM must also be accompanied by appropriate

mechanisms for efficient decision-making. Today, however, the various bodies operate
mainly on the basis of consensus, as far as the regulatory aspects of ATM are
concerned. This slows down the implementation of the ECAC strategies since, now
that nearly all the easiest points have been settled, the process is starting to stumble
over trickier issues. This is the case with, for example, the use of airborne collision
avoidance systems, the drafting of common procedures and specifications, the use of
VHF frequencies and the reduction of vertical separation, on all of which decisions
appear to be hard to reach through the EATCHIP processes. By contrast it seems
probable that decisions could have been reached on all these points if rule-making had
been based on majority voting.

But above all, the present state of affairs cannot go on as it is because it does not
recognise the fact that airspace must be regarded as a common resource which has to
be managed in the best interests of all users. The need to take national defence
requirements into consideration is sometimes used as a justification for such an
approach, but these concerns could easily be met by instituting proper safeguards.

There is a need to introduce effective decision-making processes based on majority

voting instead of unanimity, together with appropriate safeguard mechanisms to deal
with exceptional cases where national security could be threatened.

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 Lack of decision-making aids

(Sections 3.1, 3.6.1, 4.2, 4.3, 5.1 and 5.2 of the Annex)

15.- A major weakness in the present arrangements is the lack of management information
to assist the decision-making process. This is already widely recognised, and several
of the programmes in EATCHIP and APATSI are intended to address the causes.

The first cause is the lack of suitable indicators to access the quality and quantity of
the service provided or to be supplied. This hampers traffic flow management and
planning; and hinders any detailed cost-benefit analysis of major investment or of
options under consideration for boosting the capacity of the system, such as Reduced,
Vertical Separation, Area Navigation, etc.

The second lies in individual countries' reluctance to reveal details of costs,

investment, manpower, etc. This lack of transparency makes it difficult"to check that
the common objectives are attained, to conduct cost-benefit analyses on the
appropriate scale or simply to make comparisons to evaluate the performance and
efficiency of all involved.

The third stems from the inadequacy of the human and technical resources available
to carry out the analyses required to support the decision-making process. This can
be explained by the fact that, until comparatively recently, air traffic control services
were invariably provided by national authorities as a monopoly public service in which
users had little say. That, however, is certainly no longer acceptable today, not least
for the users, and every decision must be fully justified on the basis of technical,
economic and social criteria in order to make sure that they will give the expected
results in terms of safety and capacity; ensure the competitiveness of the European
economies; and be acceptable to the human environment.

There is a need for a stronger support for decision-takers, which would be able to
provide them with appropriate information and well-prepared proposals.

Inefficient use of available resources

(Sections 3.2, 3.5, 3.7 and 4.2.2 of the Annex)

16.- The poor use of available resources reflects the approach of ATC authorities which
seek, first of all, to solve their particular problems on their own. This can be seen
at three levels.

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 The most obvious, of course, is the proliferation of types of particular equipment,
both civil and military, where a joint approach would have allowed more rational
siting and operation. This holds true especially for communication, navigation and
surveillance systems, but applies also to control centres themselves and ATM
subsystems. One good example of what closer cooperation can achieve is the Initial
Flightplan Processing System (IFPS), set up to assist the establishment of the Central
Flow Management Unit (CFMU).

The second level is in the approach taken in making technological choices. In

particular, the ATM sector appears to be denying itself access to techniques -
particularly in the case of telecommunications and data transmission applications -
which have already proved their worth in other fields. This seems to be due to a lack
of systematic evaluation of and experimentation with new technologies which could
be used for air traffic management.

The third can be seen in the procedures for drafting specifications and common
standards. Today the ATM community acts as legislator, standards-setter, customer
and engineer. This complicates and slows down the standardisation process and
distances it from what is happening in industry. Instead, the industry could play its
role in this sector as it does in others. Enlisting the help of standardisation bodies
would be a better means of sharing the work to be done and, therefore, enabling the
legislative bodies to concentrate more on the matters for which they are specially
responsible. Establishment of a certification and labelling mechanism would also ease
the task of the industry and customers and improve the functioning of the internal
market.

There is a need for a central authority to decide on common options, allocate tasks
and rationalise investments.

Lack of means of following up decisions

(Sections 3.2, 3.5, 3.7 and 4.3 of the Annex)

17.- The need for effective decision-making mechamsms has already been discussed, but
experience shows that, if a decision is to be properly applied in practice, monitoring
is needed to ensure that it is correctly understood by all concerned; that all the means
needed to carry it out are available; and that any failure to comply properly is
detected and corrective action taken in good time.

Paragraph 15 described the shortcomings in the area of decision-making aids. The

same shortcomings - absence of adequate performance indicators, lack of
transparency and insufficient resources - are also hampering the establishment of an
objective, independent evaluation mechanism.

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 In any event, the institutional arrangements linking the parties concerned allow no
effective corrective measures other than the obligation to comply with the
"EUROCONTROL standards" made mandatory in the Community through the
mechanism established by Directive 93/65.

So long as regulatory decisions can be taken only by consensus, and therefore only
cover action which would have been undertaken spontaneously in any case, this is
possibly not too critical. The situation would be very different, however, were
decisions to be taken by majority vote.

This shortcoming is especially apparent when it comes to monitoring the

implementation of the Convergence and Implementation Programme (CIP), where
it is particularly difficult to know whether individual countries are in fact achieving
in good time the joint objectives.

Similar suspicions persist with regard to application of the common procedures and
specifications, particularly for non-Community countries where no measures seem
to have been taken to implement the EUROCONTROL standards.

There is a need for a central authority able to ensure that decisions are applied
effectively and uniformly, and to take any necessary remedial steps if they are not.

Lack of tools for implementation and support

(Sections 3.5 and 3.7 of the Annex)

18.- Not all decisions can be absolutely mandatory, particularly when implementing them
depends on such imponderables as the availability of capital or the technical
feasibility of certain projects. This is particularly true of investment, and research
and technological development. It is then necessary for the decision-makers
themselves to have sufficient resources to ensure that the policies they decide are
carried through.

Apart from some Community funds, however, there are no other collective financial
resources available to the ATM community which can help certain members to attain
the objectives of the CIP, although such resources are essential.

Further, the resources available both to EUROCONTROL and individual countries

are far from adequate to meet the research and development requirements essential
for working up the ideas and techniques needed to satisfy the demand foreseeable in

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 the medium to long term. Moreover, since these resources come from en-route
charges, users are reluctant to see that money allocated to long-term research and
technological development activities which, they consider, should come under
industrial rather than transport policy.

There is a need for a central authority, with the ability to dispose of appropriate
financial resources to support the implementation of agreed ATM policies.

Inadequate cost control

(Sections 4.2, 4.2.1, 4.2.3 and 4.4 of the Annex)

19.- Air traffic control is, first and foremost, a safety function provided mainly by public
administrations or authorities as a public service. Because, up to now, it has
generally not been treated as a commercial service, cost control has not been one of
the foremost concerns. This tendency has been aggravated partly by the institutional
framework within which the providers of the service operated; and partly by the
methods used for recovering costs.

On the first of these points, the fact that the services are provided by the public
sector imposes administrative constraints which mean they cannot take advantage of
all the opportunities available to private sector business managers to motivate their
staff and fund their operations at the lowest possible cost. Although changes in
various countries are helping to reduce this handicap, there is a need to establish a
broad economic environment more condusive to managerial efficiency.There are
various possible ways of achieving this, which need to be explored further.

As for the second point, the knowledge that all one's expenditure will always be
recovered through user charges to customers, irrespective of their number, together
with a non-profit-making ethos, means that suppliers of ATM services lack a proper
motivation to pursue cost-effectiveness.

There is a need to encourage the development of an appropriate organisational

environment which would encourage the managerial responsibility of ATM providers
and stimulate their cost-consciousness.

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 IV. DEFINING A SOLUTION

20.- There can be no question that solving the shortcomings identified in the preceding
paragraphs will require a major restructuring of the organisational arrangements
applicable to Air Traffic Management in Europe today. This would, in fact, mean
setting up a single ATM system, since it appears clearly from the previous chapter
that what is required above all is a central authority with a specific mandate,
provided with the appropriate means to fulfill its tasks.

(a) The need to separate regulatory and operational functions

21.- As described earlier ATM comprises two main functions which require two very
different skills - one based on legal and administrative competence, and the other on
extensive technical knowledge and management proficiency.

These functions are so different that it is questionable whether, any single

organisation could perform them both equally well : such an organisation would
naturally be reluctant to admit its own shortcomings and indeed might be tempted
to use its regulatory powers to ward off the emergence of any alternative, competing
approaches to air traffic management. Separation of the two functions would also
encourage greater efficiency in the exercise of, and greater transparency in the
allocation of responsibilities to each function.

Although the current shortcomings affect all aspects of ATM policy-making and
service-provision, it seems apparent that most spring from weaknesses in the area
of policy-making at the most strategic level, which then feed through to affect
service provision as such.

There is a strong case, therefore, for concentrating efforts on improving the present
procedures for strategic policy-making by creating a single regulatory authority,
while leaving existing mechanisms for service provision very largely unchanged.This
would take greater account of both the reality of the present situation and the
principle of subsidiarity and proportionality as laid down in the Treaty, according
to which collective action should be limited to those fields in which it is more
effective than individual action, and should be in proportion to the objective to be
achieved.

In any organisational reform in the field of ATM the two principle functions -
"regulatory" and "operational" - should be dissociated as far as practicable, although
there is a need for an in-depth analysis of how this could best be achieved.

(b) The operational function

22.- As far as the operational function is concerned - which can itself be subdivided into
. a number of sub-functions (the supply of communications, navigation, surveillance,
ATC, air traffic flow management and other air navigation services) - it has been

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 argued that setting up a single operator is the most radical way to create the single
system Europe needs. According to its proponents such an approach would not only
ease the provision of consistent ATC services throughout Europe regardless of
national borders, but also allow for economies of scale by rationalising the
investment required to provide these services. On the other hand setting up such a
monopoly at Community or ECAC level seems hardly realistic given the practical
reality of air traffic management in Europe today. Not only does it raise issues of
national security and control but it is also doubtful whether it would actually cure
some of the system's present weaknesses, particularly as regards cost-cutting. In
addition it would inevitably hamper the development of competitive alternatives (see
section 4.2.3 in the Annex). Accordingly, it might be better to leave individual
countries to provide - as cost-effectively as possible, through public or private
operators in accordance with their own practices - the services prescribed by the
regulatory function.

At the same time, though, it is necessary to encourage the development of a more

stimulating environment by setting pricing policy on a more commercial footing than
it is at present (see section 4.4. of the annex), so as to encourage greater cost-
consciousness.

It would also be up to the operators to choose ways of cooperating or competing

with their opposite numbers in Europe according to their own strategy and interests.
Some countries may choose to provide ATC services on a joint basis, as happens
now with the Maastricht Centre operated by EUROCONTROL providing ATC
services for Northern Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. A
similar joint control centre is planned for several countries in central Europe. The
regulatory authority should be able to provide support, on the lines described to in
paragraph 18, to encourage such joint initiatives aimed at improving economic
efficiency.

If individual countries opt for "monopolistic" solutions - as seems inevitable at this

point, as far as most of the sub-functions are concerned - it should be their
responsibility to set up the economic control mechanisms necessary to protect users.
It could also be for the regulatory authority to define and set common economic
targets so as to ensure a consistent level of performance throughout Europe.

As far as Member States of the Community are concerned, they will of course need
to respect the requirements of the air transport policy and the provisions of the
Treaty.

23.- There is, however, one sub-function which might justifiably be centralised in any
case: traffic flow management. This has already been widely recognised, and indeed
a centralised system is currently being set up under the aegis of EUROCONTROL.

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 In its Communication on congestion and crisis16, however, the Commission
expressed its dissatisfaction with the arrangement under which the CFMU is
operating. In addition to its executive role, the CFMU should be given, within a
future centralised authority, the powers which would make its decisions compulsory
both for users and service providers, as far as flow planning, ATC slot allocation
and targets for ATC capacity are concerned (see section 5 of the Annex).

Moreover, in a context of increased competition between providers of services,

particularly in view of changes in the policy of calculating and redistributing route
charges, decisions taken by the CFMU leading to a redistribution of traffic might
have an important effect on the revenue and profitability of ATC bodies. It is
therefore important that the CFMU's role should be more clearly spelt out and its
relationships with its "customers" set on a contractual footing, so as to avoid
continual disputes in the future.

This same structure should also take on a greater responsibility for the operational
management of the "flexible use of airspace" concept at European level, since the
techniques required for coordinating civil and military traffic are very similar to
those used for managing and planning air traffic flows. Ideally its competence should
even be expanded to include the management of the whole European airspace for all
users, civil and military, with the same delegated authority, as suggested earlier.

(c). The regulatory function

24.- While arrangements for the provision of ATM services could remain the
responsibility of individual countries, quite different arrangements must be
considered for the "regulatory function". This function - which itself may be
subdivided into sub-functions (safety, economic performance, investment, human
resources, access to airspace, Research and Development, etc) - ought to be
organised in such a way that it can draw up a single, unified regulatory framework,
compatible with international standards and practices. That framework should
cover:

the level of safety to be met and ways of monitoring its achievement. This
includes the definition of operational requirements and certification procedures
applicable to ATM equipment and services;

quantitative and qualitative objectives for the service to be provided, and

timetables for meeting those objectives. This implies in particular the setting of
quantified targets for the traffic to be handled, acceptable delays, the capacity
to be provided and, possibly, the level of fees to be charged; it ought to include

16
COM(95) 318 final, 5.7.1995

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 also some kind of performance audit or management control to support the
achievement of these targets.

joint procedures and specifications to ensure interoperability and interconnection

between the various components of the system, as well as methods for checking
that these procedures and specifications are complied with;

the collective management of certain scarce resources. This applies in particular

to the use of available ATC capacity at peak periods or in times of crises, as
well as to the allocation of airspace to its various users, civil and military;

the preparation and implementation of a joint investment policy under which the
cost/benefit analyses necessary for making rational choices would be carried out
in common and using, as far as possible, an "equipment fund" to help weaker
partners or to increase capacity in the most critical areas; such a policy should
take into account the potential of private financing and public-private
partnerships to be set up by the local operators;

a human resources management policy which would help to develop a uniform

level of services provision throughout Europe, and to facilitate the free
movement of air traffic control staff; and

a better co-operation in the field of Research and Technological Development,

to ensure that new concepts come forward, are selected and are applied in a
timely manner, while recognising that final decisions for RTD activities remain
with the competent authorities.

To achieve this it is clear that the best way is to have a central regulatory authority
able to build the comprehensive picture required and enjoying the power and
resources advocated in paragraphs 13 to 18.17

V. OPTIONS FOR THE SINGLE ATM SYSTEM

Option 1 : a "European monolithic structure"

25.- As already mentioned, in paragraph 22, it has often been suggested that establishing
a more efficient organisational framework requires very centralised solutions, similar

17
The Commission is conscious that the delicate question of maintaining the appropriate balance between safety and efficiency,
could justify that operational requirements and safety aspects sould be regulated by a separate body, which, in view of the
increasing integration of ground and on-board equipment into a global ATM system, should also be responsible for the
safety of aviation as a whole. This will be considered in the work being done separately on the possible setting up a
"European Aviation Safety Aurhority".

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 to the role originally envisioned for EUROCONTROL, which would bring both the
policy-making and service-provision functions under one umbrella across all Europe.
Although, by definition, such solutions would not meet the criterion that the
regulatory and service-provision functions should be separated, they are considered
as an option because they have been the subject of considerable discussion.

Establishing such a "monolithic structure" would involve transferring all the

necessary powers and resources to a single entity, set up by a special Treaty with
a mandate to manage, as efficiently as possible, the airspace for which it was
responsible; and to provide, within that airspace, air navigation services as a
universal public service. The procedures for this would be set down in broad outline
in its constitution and spelt out in detail by a management body representing the
various interests involved.

The proponents of a "monolithic structure" argue that a highly centralised

organisation of this sort would bring considerable advantages in terms of
accelerating the standardisation of ATS provision across Europe by giving
responsibility both for service provision and future policy-making to a single entity,
as in the USA. An organisation of this nature would, it is argued, be able to be far
more authoritative and decisive than the present situation allows.

However, while a "monolithic structure" might be practicable in a single country

already equipped with central decision-making and monitoring structures, it seems
even less realistic than creating a single operator (see paragraph 22) insofar as it
could exacerbate the difficulties raised. And indeed, some countries which already
have such centralised structures are now beginning to question the merits of a
monolithic approach and are considering a clearer distinction of the respective roles
and responsibilities, as suggested earlier in this paper.

Option 2: "a solution limited to the Community"

26.- Using the powers and resources conferred on it by the Treaty, the Community might
be able to provide answers to a number of the shortcomings identified, and provide
for its Member States the single regulatory framework referred to above. This would
be consistent with the objective of the Treaty to favour Community solutions when
collective action would be - as in this case - more efficient than action by individual
countries.

This would also be a logical consequence of the existence of Community competence

in air traffic management.

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 Improvement of the European ATM system is essential for the completion of the
single market in air transport and thus for achieving those objectives of the Treaty,
particularly with regard to economic and social cohesion and the free movement of
people. Community action in this area therefore forms an integral part of the
common air transport policy and the Community should act to fulfil its legal and
political obligations.

Moreover, paragraph 1 of Article 75 of the Treaty says that "the Council...will

establish... measures to improve transport safety...". Since the purpose of air traffic
management is, above all, to ensure the safety of air transport, and the purpose of
action is to further improve this safety at a time when air traffic is growing
steadily, there can be no doubt as to the Community's competence in this field.

27.- The Community has a number of legal powers through which it could take action
here - Article 84(2) for matters directly linked to the furtherance of the common
transport policy; Article 100A for harmonisation measures; Article 129 c for the
interoperability and interconnection of national air traffic control systems; and
Article 130H for research co-ordination.

Using these, the Community might be able to produce the comprehensive picture
needed to solve the problems, and develop a single airspace managed as a joint
resource regardless of national boundaries, by establishing a body with appropriate
responsibilities. Ideally this would involve treating military and civil use of this
communal airspace together ; and if Member States were concerned that this could
affect their national security interests, appropriate solutions and safeguards could be
found and applied, if there were sufficient political will to do so.

As for the actual provision of air navigation services in such a scenario, this would
remain the responsibility of the Member States, but these services would have to
comply with specifications drawn up by the Community in accordance with ICAO
standards.

28.- The Community could use its organisational procedures - which have already proved
useful in several other fields - in the field of ATM, to develop the necessary
regulatory framework and to ensure that it is properly implemented. It has already
done so with the adoption of Directive 93/65 on the mandatory technical
specifications for the procurement of ATM equipment and systems; and it could do
the same in many other aspects - some of which are already being pursued by
EUROCONTROL and ICAO - so long as the provisions adopted are compatible
with the standards and practices already agreed in these competent bodies. These
include matters on which the Commission may decide to bring forward proposals

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 in any case: the use of airborne collision avoidance systems; the adoption of
common procedures; the use of VHF frequencies; the reduction of vertical
separation; the setting of joint objectives on the capacity and quality of service to
be provided, both in normal circumstances and in times of crisis; and the
establishment of priority rules for making better use of the available capacity, as has
already been done in relation to airport slots.

The Community can also initiate the development of industrial standards. This
ability could be used to alleviate the regulatory workload, allowing a better use of
the industry's expertise and a better functioning of the internal market. Indeed
Directive 83/189/EEC18 established information procedures in the field of technical
regulations and standards, whereby the Commission can give a standardisation
mandate to specialist bodies to undertake the development of technical standards
themselves; and can contribute financially to this work. This would require,
however, the establishment of a body to evaluate and select the areas to be covered,
bridging the gap between research and development and the implemention of new
technologies once they are fully established (see section 3.2 of the Annex).

29.- The Community can use the instruments available to it for support and
implementation. It has already done so in the area of ATM wherever possible.

Under Article 129 relating to trans-European networks, the Community is able not
only to adopt appropriate measures for ensuring the interoperability and
interconnection of the national systems but also to provide significant financial
support for implementing the ATM improvement strategies. To pave the way for
this, the Commission has included ATM in its proposal for a Decision on guidelines
for the development of the Trans-European Transport Network and, with the
cooperation of experts, is drawing up a programme of projects to receive support
for action in this area (see Appendix 3). In December 1994, at their meeting in
Essen, the Heads of State and Government underlined the importance of the ATM
sector.

Further, the availability of funds for cooperation with the Community's European
neighbours, PHARE19 and TAOS 20 , make it possible to extend the Community's
support to the whole of the area ideally to be covered by the ATM improvement
strategies.

18 OJNoL109/8, 26.4.1983
19 PHARE = Poland, Hungary Aid for the Restructuring for Technical Assistance to the Economy.
20 TAGS = Technical Assisance to the Commonwealth of Indépendant States

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 To be truly effective, however, these instruments should be used in a context of
stronger cooperation, enabling comprehensive assessments to be made of the
investment required; the funding capabilities of individual countries; and the
progress made towards achieving joint objectives.

Article 130H, and subsequent articles, enable cooperation to take place between the
Community, Member States and international organisations to assemble and
implement a consistent research and development programme so that the best use
is made of available resources in air traffic management. Indeed, the Commission
has taken the initiative of coordinating, in close collaboration with its partners, the
various ATM studies already included in the fourth Framework Programme through
ECARDA21. It is essential to develop this, both to ensure that work is followed up
and disseminated, and to build on this cooperation for still more ambitious
programmes in future (see section 3.7 of the Annex; and Appendix 4).

In response to the need for greater coordination of RTD activities and policies, the
Commission has also decided to set up Task Forces for specific subjects. The Task
Forces should also provide support in transforming European scientific
breakthroughs and technological achievements into industrial and commercial
successes. The activities of two of the Task Forces, the Task Force on "New
Generation Aircraft" and the Task Force on "Transport Intermodality", are relevant
to ATM and support the objectives of this White Paper.

30. However, Community involvement in the field of ATM has certain limits, in
particular because the preparation and monitoring of action in such a specialised
field require particular expertise which, effectively, at present, is only available to
national organisations and EUROCONTROL. Therefore, the Community would
have to set up a new executive body to prepare the decisions to be taken and to
follow up subsequent developments.

Such an operation, however, would not be easy to justify given the fact that other
organisations are already working in the ATM field, and that the tasks of the new
body would, to a large extent, coincide with those which are currently the
responsibility of EUROCONTROL.

A solution could be to transform the EUROCONTROL Agency into a Community

agency, but this could imply dismantling the organisation as such in order to keep
only its means and resources for regulatory tasks.

Moreover, although such a Community approach would make it possible to deal

with some of the problems facing the 15 Member States, it would not give the
complete European dimension to the action required. The efficiency of Community
air

21
ECARDA = European Coherent Approach for RTD in ATM

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 transport depends also on the quality of ATC services in non-Member States,
because they have to be overflown, or because their airspace could be needed to
absorb some traffic at peak times.

The Community could, certainly, use its powers under the Treaty to conclude
agreements with its neighbours, but it is not at all clear if they would want this
because such agreements could not necessarily guarantee them the participative role
to which they have become accustomed in the organisations currently active in
ATM.

Option 3: a broader European solution

31.- Considering the limitations of the previous option it seems preferable to look for a
wider European framework than just the geographical area covered by the Member
States of the Community. Working on the basis of such a broader coverage would
be a far better way of improving the efficiency of European ATM - provided
always that this approach does not have the effect of weakening the structures and
mechanisms needed to achieve that objective. This would also provide for more
flexibility, increasing the scope for subregional groupings to further integrate their
airspace should they choose to do so.

Another major advantage of building the single ATM system on a wider multilateral
organisation is that national governments might well find it easier to allow such an
organisation to play a role in the military use of airspace22, provided appropriate
safeguards were foreseen and allow the States to retain in these cases the control of
this use.

Given the existence of EUROCONTROL, it is obviously more sensible if that

organisation were to take on part of the necessary regulatory role in Europe,
becoming primarily responsible for airspace management and technical
specifications.

This option would certainly require "reinventing" EUROCONTROL so as to give

it greater political legitimacy, and invest it with powers as well as the necessary
decision-taking, monitoring and support mechanisms to enable it to carry out its
tasks properly. To do so calls for a careful examination23 of a range of organisation
models, covering the sub-functions listed in paragraph 24 to different degrees, and
envisaging a range of possible decision-taking processes and control system. This
exercise should identify new structures capable of meeting fully the requirements
described earlier in this

22
Bearing in mind that there is no Community competence in this field.
23
Such an exercise is being carried out by the INSTAR Study, in close co-operation with the Commission

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 paper; and of carrying out themselves, or supervising effectively the undertaking by
others, all the various tasks discussed in the Annex. The EUROCONTROL
Convention would then need to be revised accordingly to accomodate the model
selected.24

32. The Community will itself have to take a position on the structure it prefers, so that
it can present its own proposals in due course.

Obviously, it is the view of the Commission, that any solution will have to conform
to the principal conclusions of this White Paper. In particular, there has to be a
clear separation between the exercise of the regulatory and the operational functions,
except for the operational aspects of Air Traffic Flow Management - and, if
possible, of Air Space Management - which need to be performed centrally and
should be regarded as part of the regulatory role of allocating available resources
between their various users on a compulsory basis.

Although other operational tasks should remain decentralised at national level, this
does not preclude joint ventures to perform them, where this is practicable and
compatible with competition rules.

A central authority must be established to cover all the tasks except for the first one
described in paragraph 24. This "new EUROCONTROL" should be given the
powers and resources necessary to overcome the shortcomings described in
paragraphs 13 to 18.

33. Moreover, since the Community already has competence in many of the fields for
which the "new EUROCONTROL" would be responsible - see paragraphs 26 to
29 - and because the further development of Community competence would facilitate
building a single ATM system, the Commission considers it essential that the
Community becomes a full member of this organisation. This will allow the
Community to exercise its competence and ensure that decisions were compatible
with the policies of the Treaty and were taken in a more transparent and democratic
way. The Community should, therefore, speak on all matters which fall within its
sphere of competence, with sufficient voting weight to oppose any decision that
would be contrary to its own interests. To do so, the positions taken by the
Community will have been worked out beforehand in accordance with Community
procedures so that all institutions can play their proper roles, and that the
commitments regarding the consultation of interested parties, in particular the social
partners, are met appropriately. Similarly, the positions of the Member States in
matters where they are competent should be co-ordinated according to procedures

24
EUROCONTROL itself is considering a draft new convention which would strenghten its organisational arrangements. In
December 1995, however, the EUROCONTROL Standing Commission decided to postpone further consideration of this until
this White Paper had been issued and debated.

Version of 5 3.96 - 055.96/EN 25

 which ensure close co-operation and the unity of the Community position in
international fora. Finally, the Community would use the enforcement and incentive
tools available to it in order to ensure that decisions are followed up and
implemented in the territories of its Member States.

On this basis, and in the light of the work being done on the institutional
arrangements, the Commission will develop a recommendation for negotiating
directives in order to allow the Community to become a party to
EUROCONTROL : obviously, this implies that the conditions described in
paragraphs 31 to 33 are fully met.

VI. CONCLUSIONS

34.- Despite the notable achievements of the aeronautical community, and the quality of
the strategies and programmes put forward, the present situation still does not
guarantee that the Community will have the air traffic management, system that
would both meet the needs of users and satisfy its own policy objectives.

The Commission considers that, to attain those objectives, it is necessary to set up

a system of air traffic management separating the regulatory from the operational
functions and established at the widest possible European level, which is able to cut
across national boundaries. Such a system must be based on the centralised exercise
of regulatory functions together with certain operational tasks in the fields of Air
Traffic Flow Management and Air Space Management, with the undertaking of
other operational tasks remaining the responsibility of individual countries.

With the aim of making a positive contribution to the debate, and without prejudice
to the exercise and development of Community competence required in this area,
the Commission considers the third option developed in this White Paper as a
pragmatic one, aimed at "re-inventing" EUROCONTROL which implies that the
organisation must have the powers and mechanisms for decision-taking and
monitoring needed to carry out its role with proper authority. The Community
must become a member of the new EUROCONTROL with the weight it deserves
and on terms which enable it to exercise its competence and allow its Institutions to
perform the roles allocated to them by the Treaty. Accordingly, the Commission
will make recommendations, in order to allow the Community to become a party to
EUROCONTROL and ensure that the conditions for this option are fully met.

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 ANNEX

BUILDING A UNIFIED AIR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Working towards unified Air Traffic Management System is a complex operation calling
for continuous development simultaneously in several very different fields in order to
achieve and maintain the following essential goals :

- a high level of safety;

- the protection of the environment;
- an increase in ATC capacity;
- effective control of costs;
- the most efficient use of available ATC capacity.

This Annex aims to analyse each of these goals, describe what is required in each case, and
explain what needs to be done. In doing so, and without attempting to prejudge how the
present institutional arrangements might be improved, the Annex pays particular attention
to instances where they appear to be causing problems which hinder development.

1. A high level of safety

The main purpose of air traffic management systems is to ensure that aircraft can move
about in safety, since it is established that, without air traffic control, the risk of mid-air
collision would be intolerably high (see Appendix 1).

On the basis of the available indicators, it seems fair to say that this objective has been
achieved in Europe: since the Zagreb collision in September 1976, there have been no
further collisions between two airliners in controlled airspace over the continent.
Furthermore, the total number of air misses has remained relatively stable since the 1980s
in spite of the considerable increase in air traffic (see Appendix 2).

Nevertheless, given the expected growth in traffic, with a higher density of aircraft in an
increasingly large proportion of Europe's airspace, even greater efforts must be made to
maintain and, if possible, improve the efficiency of the European air traffic management
system.

However, safety activities in the field of air traffic management will have to be carried out
taking into account that they have to be integrated with the other areas of the civil aviation
industry.

Accordingly, several measures must be considered without further delay.

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fy
 1.1. The use of airborne collision avoidance systems (ACAS)

Aircraft must be equipped with a device which enables them to react in the event of loss of
separation from other aircraft. The use of such equipment has been made obligatory in the
United States in the wake of mid-air collisions which aroused great concern among the
American public. Such a radical decision is being resisted in Europe, where controllers
seem to fear that it would lead aircrews to take sudden avoidance action which might create
even more dangerous situations. Nevertheless, all the experimental data show that the use
of such equipment would improve safety in 95 % of cases and create an additional risk in
only 3% of cases. In the light of such clear evidence, the aviation community has decided
to move swiftly to develop procedures whereby these additional risks can be eliminated and
the use of anti-collision equipment can be made obligatory from January 2000. Some still
consider that not enough simulation and tests have been carried out to validate this decision
while others still consider the implementation date should be brought forward.

Comment : The difficulty to arbitrate between various points of view demonstrates that
the present arrangements lack ofproper decision-making aids and of efficient
decision-making mechanisms.

1.2. The use of Short-Term Conflict Alert (STCA).

Appendix 1 describes how air traffic control is provided and specifies that the use of
modern software allows, by integrating flight and radar datas, the calculation of predicted
trajectories of aircraft and thus the anticipation of possible conflicts. Such systems, called
Short-Term Conflict Alert (STCA), constitute a safeguard mechanism, which is rapidly
becoming indispensable in areas of dense traffic, it has therefore been decided to implement
them in all centres of the "core area" before the and of 1998.

This target date seems very distant, and might possibly be capable of being brought
forward.

Comment : In this case also, more far-reaching and determinate decisions would require
proper decision-making aids and efficient decision-making mechanisms.

1.3. Developing a safety policy

In view of their priority tasks, air traffic control organisations believe they have a
responsibility to ensure that their services provide the highest possible level of safety. All
down the line, each individual assumes complete responsibility for his or her role in this
regard. "Quality control" in this context means examining how air misses are handled and
action is taken when automatic alarm systems are triggered (see Appendix 1).

Since the air traffic controller's work involves constant trade-offs between safety and
efficiency, to say nothing of customer satisfaction, a number of ATC bodies have realised
that it is increasingly risky to allow such decisions to be made purely at the operational
level, particularly in an environment where there is growing pressure from users on
puncmality. They have concluded that what is needed is a genuine safety policy aimed at
preventing incidents and accidents based on clear objectives and continuous surveillance -

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*?
 such as was drawn up by the industry long ago for the purposes of quality control. This
implies also setting up in each operational centre a specialised, independent unit with its
own resources and the ability to gather information using not only traditional methods but
also the incident processing and confidential reporting systems on which the Commission
is currently working.

Comment : the development of a comprehensive safety policy would require both a truly
global vision and a clearer distinction between regulatory and service
provision functions.

1.4. Other actions in the field of safety

To deal with the ever-growing number of flights, new and more fully-automated
technologies must be used operationally. The introduction of these new technologies will
appreciably alter the human role in the actual control of movements in the air. It is
important that sufficiently powerful tools be available to detect the new problems which
human beings will have to face; to improve the recogmtion of the human factors involved
in ATM; and to ensure that techniques similar to those already used for pilot training are
integrated into the training of controllers.

Comment : the definition and implementation of an ambitious work programme in the

field of human factors will require reinforced co-operation in the research
and technological development activities of all the parties involved and
additional financial resources.

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? <?
 2. The Protection of the environment

Environmentalists do not have a very positive image of aviation, and congestion and the
resulting delays are regarded as further causes of pollution and nuisance. In fact, the
situation is otherwise: for obvious safety reasons, the entire system of air traffic
management, and in particular flow management, aims at keeping aircraft waiting on the
ground with their engines stopped rather than waisting time in the air. Under these
conditions, improving the flow of air traffic would have no direct effect upon the
environment.

Nevertheless, it is generally accepted (see Appendixes 1 and 2) that the network of air
routes in Europe adds 10% to the distances travelled and could be improved so as to reduce
this excess by half, thus reducing proportionately the amount of fuel consumed and
pollutants emitted.

Similarly, the improved use of airspace resulting from a reduction in vertical separations
would make for optimum flight profiles, thus reducing consumption.

Accordingly the implementation of a Community strategy for improving the efficiency of

air traffic management in Europe, in particular by making better use of airspace, reducing
route lengths and avoiding unnecessary airborne holdings would make a significant
contribution to sustainable mobility, beneficial also from an environmental point of view.

Comment : the development of a consistent ATM policy requires, a broader view to

ensure consistency with policy aims in other fields.

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3^
 3. Increasing A TC capacity

As is emphasized by all airspace users, after meeting safety requirements, the first priority
must be to increase the capacity of Europe's air traffic control system.

This is the simplest way to meet all the needs and to give everybody the freedom of
movement and freedom of choice which are the foundations of any democratic society, if
complex and controversial regulation for market access and access to airspace are to be
avoided.

Moreover, within an air transport system based on a market economy and free market
access, it is important to allow all operators to plan and operate their flights in accordance
with their perception of demand.

To achieve these objectives, the aviation community acting within the framework of ECAC
has adopted a harmonisation and integration strategy which aims to set up a unified air
traffic management system. This is supported by the Commission to a significant extent
and, indeed, by all the other interested parties, who have frequently stated their approval
of the contribution of the EATCHIP and APATSI programmes towards implementing that
strategy.

This chapter, therefore, considers what should be done to ensure the timely and effective
implementation of these programmes.

3.1 Common objectives

Any programme for increasing capacity must be based on common operational objectives
and a common implementation timetable to ensure that supply matches demand and to
coordinate the expenditure involved. It would be an inefficient use of resources if the
equipment introduced by a control organisation could not be used to maximum capacity
because neighbouring organisations were working to a different timetable or had not
matched their equipment to the needs of the system.

Although, the relevant work is indeed being done within the EATCHIP and CIP framework,
a question mark hangs over these objectives since, at present, they constitute only voluntary
commitments on the part of the ECAC States.

Up to now, goodwill and a commonality of interest have been sufficient to ensure that these
commitments are honoured, as can be seen from the progress made in implementing the
CIP. Consequently, there would seem to be no reason why these commitments should be
made formal and mandatory: it is, moreover, difficult to oblige States to comply with
objectives when their ability to do so depends on the availability of financial resources over
which they do not have complete control.

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 Nevertheless, it would be useful to give these objectives a more formal status so as to
enable the development of an investment policy stimulated by financial incentives from
Community funds (networks, cohesion, cooperation) or any other available fund.

In this spirit, it might be necessary as well to consider setting up of a specialised fund,

financed by ATC fees and managed by a central ATM authority.

Comment : the present situation shows that decisions taken are insufficiently binding, are
not followed up adequately, and cannot be adequately supported financially
to ensure their proper implementation.

3.2 Common procedures and specifications

One of the major reasons for the inefficiency of the present European ATC system is the
difference in technical and operational specifications between the various ATC systems in
use in Europe. This has led to the coexistence of mutually incompatible technical equipment
with different levels of performance. The result is a major loss in overall ATC capacity and,
probably, safety levels which differ from one system to another.

The EATCHIP programme has therefore tackled this problem, and EUROCONTROL has
been asked to draw up the necessary common procedures and specifications, some of which
will be given a mandatory character and known as "EUROCONTROL standards"1.

The development of common procedures and technical specifications is indeed a sine qua
non for providing Europe with a unified air traffic management system. In addition, the
single market in ATM equipment and services cannot become a reality without common
technical specifications. The European Parliament and the Council have, on a number of
occasions, drawn attention to the importance of such procedures and specifications and have
asked the Commission to do everything possible to facilitate the technical harmomsation
work needed for this purpose.
Accordingly, on 19 July 1993, the Community adopted Directive 93/65/EEC on the
definition and use of compatible technical specifications for the procurement of equipment
and systems for air traffic management. This Directive makes "EUROCONTROL
standards" mandatory at Community level.

But the work required to make this harmomsation and develop common procedures and
requirements is heavy and costly. EUROCONTROL estimates its cost at 68 MECU for
1994 alone, and that figure will have to increase in coming years if the input required for
the achievement of the Convergence and Implementation Programme (CIP) are to be
available in due time. It is therefore necessary to make additional resources available to give
this work a new impetus and allow the involvement of more stakeholders.

"EUROCONTROL standard", which are mandatory technical specifications, are not to be confused with European standards.
The latter are drawn up by European standardisation bodies, initially as voluntary technical specifications which may become
mandatory in certain cases and are therefore processed through the Community legislative machinery.

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 Comment : there is clearly a need for more financial support to implement and
accelerate the standardisation work programme.

Such financial support must, however, go hand in hand with a number of organisational or
institutional reforms to make the action more effective.

One of the major weaknesses in the present process lies in the decision-making process
which requires unanimity. Other more flexible procedures must therefore be considered.

Nor does the present decision-making process sufficiently involve the member countries of
ECAC which are not members of EUROCONTROL and which therefore have only a moral
commitment to the EATCHIP programme. Ways must therefore be found of enabling all
the participating States to become genuinely committed to this programme.

Comment : there appears to be a lack of effective decision-making mechanisms involving

all ECAC partners.

While recognising the value and the important contribution of the work undertaken within
the EATCHIP framework, it is generally admitted that procedures and technical
specifications are not being produced as rapidly as they should be. Apart from the
decision-making aspects which hamper the process, other organisational difficulties also
slow it down significantly.

The first difficulty is the length of time taken to identify common specifications, notably
"EUROCONTROL standards", which are needed. Work on producing these common
technical specifications and standards must get under way in good time so that the
organisations concerned can have them when they need them. This applies not only to the
results of research and development but also to the application of conventional technologies.

As regards equipment using conventional technology, which EUROCONTROL's current

standardisation programme is largely concerned with, a structure must be set up to enable
the early identification of technical matters which ought become the subject of
"EUROCONTROL standards".

Since new technologies are of major importance for the system of the future because without
them, it will be impossible to achieve a sufficient increase in the system's capacity, stronger
links must be forged between R&D and the production of common specifications. This
presupposes efficient decision-making procedures whereby the techniques and concepts to
be introduced can be selected. Standardisation work would thus get under way in good time
so that the necessary standards or specifications are available when the equipment is ready
to be placed on the market. Having in mind the increasing integration between on-board and
ground systems, any review of this area must now cover these two aspects in the perspective
of a global system.

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 The second difficulty lies in the indiscriminate nature of standardisation work as done today.
The real added value of EATCHIP is its ability to produce the common operational
requirements, functional specifications and specifications for interoperability which are
needed to ensure the harmonization and integration of Europe's ATC systems. These
specifications, therefore, need contain only a limited amount of detail, leaving scope for
additional equipment specifications to be drawn up by industry within the framework of the
"new approach" for standardisation. Consequently, there must be closer cooperation
between the various bodies involved in standardisation on the basis of their respective
spheres of competence. For instance, in the case of questions relating to data processing
or telecommunication systems, where existing standards can be reused or modified it might
be more efficient to delegate most of the work to the European standardisation bodies.

The third difficulty arises from the fact that industry is not sufficiently involved. Its
participation in the harmomsation work upstream of its normal activities would enable the
other participants to benefit from its experience and thus develop practical solutions at lower
cost. Moreover, since operational requirements have a significant influence on the market,
it is only sensible that industry should be given an opportunity to express its opinion on a
particular technology so that the maximum cost/benefit can be achieved. Suitable equipment
could thus be made available more rapidly, and European industry would be in a better
position to compete on the world market. From this viewpoint, European industry must
organise itself so as to play its proper role in the technical harmonization process. The
EUROCAE experience suggests that a pre-standardisation organisation should be set up,
bringing together all the industries concerned.

The last difficulty arises from the fact that there are no means of ensuring that common
specifications are complied with. There is little point in making them mandatory if there is
no way of ensuring that they are actually applied. An efficient way of doing so might be
to certify ATC equipment and systems. Although the interoperability of the these systems
must be a top priority, other considerations such as the safety level of the service provided
or its standard of performance might be treated in the same way.

Comment : there appears to be an inefficient use of available resources suggesting a

need for appropriate procedures and decision-making mechanisms to identify
candidate subjects for standardisation; to allocate tasks among the various
players according to their know-how; to prepare the corresponding
standardisation mandate for specialised European standardisation bodies;
and to ensure the effective implmentation of specifications and satndards
through certification or labelling, as the case may be, for ATM equipments
and systems.

3.3. VHF frequencies

Air traffic control tasks cannot be carried out without radiotelephony (RT) communications
between aircraft and control centres. In Europe, these communications use VHF (Very
High Frequency) wavebands, with each controller and each sector being assigned a
particular frequency with, sometimes, additional contingency frequencies.

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 Increasing air traffic control capacity while using the technology currently available (see
Appendix 1) means increasing the number of sectors, and this in turn means making
available a greater number of frequencies, since any given frequency can be assigned to two
different sectors only if they are sufficiently far apart for there to be no possible confusion
or mutual interference.

Given the performance of the equipment used, the transmission of a radio message requires
a certain bandwidth, so that the VHF spectrum assigned to aviation by the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) is divided up into a limited number of usable frequencies.
(This bandwidth is currently 25 kHz : ICAO is working to reduce it to 8.33 kHz, but it will
be the end of the century before all airliners can be fitted with the necessary equipment.)

Any plans for a better use of airspace and any changes to its sectoral division mean that,
at the same time, steps must be taken to reallocate frequencies. However, those States
which have been allocated frequencies by the ITU tend to regard them as theirs by right,
and thus resist any attempts at reallocation.

To deal with this problem, EUROCONTROL has set up an advisory committee, regarded
as neutral and independent, to give its opinion on any reallocations. However because, as
the committee's name indicates, its opinions are in no way binding, it would be necessary
to give it real authority to make its decisions enforceable.

Comment : there is clearly a lack of effective decision-making mechanisms with adequate

enforcement authority to ensure the most efficient use of scarce resources,
such as VHF frequencies..

3.4 The use of airspace

Increasing the capacity of the air traffic control system means increasing the amount of
airspace which may be used by non-military aircraft; and putting more aircraft into a given
volume of airspace. In the following paragraphs, therefore, we shall consider how this can
be done with the ATC techniques currently in use, given the performance of the available
equipment (see Appendixes 1 and 2).

3.4.1 The use of military airspace

The simplest way to make available more airspace for civil aviation is to take some of the
airspace reserved for the armed forces and convert it into non-military or mixed
civil/military airspace - on the understanding that the military users of airspace must
nevertheless be enabled to carry out their missions under acceptable conditions.

Accordingly, EUROCONTROL, within the framework of the EATCHIP programme, has

developed the "flexible use of airspace" (FUA) concept which was adopted by ECAC
Ministers at their meeting in Copenhagen in June 1994.

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 The idea is that non-military aircraft would be able to use some of the airspace hitherto
reserved for the armed forces if the use of this airspace were subject to joint planning,
taking account of both civilian and military needs. As with the management of air traffic
flows (see COM(95)318 final), this concept will be implemented in three stages :
(i) strategic planning, to ensure that civil aviation requirements are, as far as possible, taken
into account in the planning of military activities, and that users are given sufficient notice
of the additional routes to be made available and of the conditions under which they can be
used; (ii) a pre-tactical phase, whereby these availabilities and conditions are confirmed or
modified 24 hours in advance; and (iii) a tactical phase on the acmal day of operation, when
the objective is to maintain compatibility between the two activities and to take all
appropriate measures to ensure sufficient flexibility to satisfy both civil and military
requirements.

This concept is being implemented at national level, which means that where it proves
impossible to satisfy each party's needs under acceptable conditions, arbitration is provided
by each individual country, regardless of the difficulties that might be created for its
neighbours.

It might therefore be questioned whether it would not be more efficient and equitable to
envisage a collective system for managing the whole European airspace, taking account of
the needs of all users, whether civilian or military, commercial or recreational, just as it has
been possible to centralise the management of air traffic flows.

This could be done without affecting the sovereignty of individual countries as far as
national security is concerned. The armed forces' need for airspace -must indeed not be
confused with the requirements of national defence : in the former case, what is required
is a system which would provide sufficient access to airspace to enable the armed forces to
carry out training or combat missions on a pre-set priority basis, whereas in the latter case
it is sufficient to ensure that individual countries have all the information they need to object
to any violation of their airspace, and that they have the right to re-establish complete
sovereignty whenever necessary in serious crisis or conflict situations.

Comment : the fact that allocation of airspace between military and civil use is effectively
made at a national rather than international level shows a lack of a
comprehensive view of Europe's airspace needs. It would be more
satisfactory and efficient to manage the military/civil uses of Europe's
airspace on a collective basis (taking as a model the management of air
traffic flows), based on legal commitments which guarantee both an equitable
access to the airspace for military needs and the safeguarding of the
national defense requirements of individual countries.

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 3.4.2 Reorganisation of routes and sectors

The routes network and the sectoral division of controlled airspace are among the
recognised weak points of Europe's air traffic control system, especially when compared
to the situation in the United States. It would appear that, in spite of all the planning work
put in by EUROCONTROL and the ICAO, national frontiers and constraints both
geopolitical and geoeconomic have had too great an influence on the organisation of air
traffic control to enable the optimisation of the route network and the division of European
airspace into control sectors.

Experts are calling for a wholesale review of these two aspects, taking into account the fact
that, if the control system were operating at optimum efficiency, capacity in certain
particularly crowded areas of Europe's airspace could be increased by anything from 20%
to 40%.

Before this can be brought about, however, major studies and long and costly simulations
must first be undertaken : accordingly, additional finance needs to be provided for the teams
who are working on this problem. Such a scheme fits logically into the development of
Trans-European Networks, and could be given significant assistance from the Community
funds.

Finding appropriate solutions will, no doubt, mean having to adjudicate between divergent
interests. Instimtional arrangements should therefore be introduced not only to provide an
overview of the optimisation process but also to enable the necessary judgements to be made
at the right time and binding decisions to be taken.

Comment : a comprehensive restructuring of the European airspace, on the basis of

operational efficiency regardless of national boundaries, requires additional
means and resources, objective assessment of the chosen solutions, and an
effective decision-taking structure.

3A.3> Vertical separations

Above flight level 290, vertical separations are of 2,000 feet, although modern altimeters
and the adoption of appropriate procedures would make it possible to reduce this separation
to 1,000 feet, as is the case in the lower airspace.

Experts estimate that this would increase capacity by between 10% and 40%, depending on
the region concerned and the complexity of the airspace involved.

However, before such a decision can be implemented, a number of prior steps must be
taken : aircraft must be suitably equipped, and operational procedures must be altered.
Moreover, if this measure is to have its maximum effect, there must be a new and more
suitable division of the airspace into sectors - one that is compatible with controllers'
workloads - and the number of controllers will probably have to be increased.

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 At present, the aviation community is divided as to the merits of such a change, and on how
soon it should take place. The airspace users want it implemented as soon as possible since
initial cost/benefit analyses indicate that it would lead to a considerable improvement in the
service provided and have persuaded ECAC to adopt a target date of 2001 for
implementation. On their side, airline pilots and air traffic controllers hold that insufficient
tests and validation have taken place up to now to enable decision to be taken on reducing
vertical separation. They stress that such a decision must be taken for the whole of Europe
at once and must take due account of human factors effects.

Comment : this case illustrates again a lack ofproper decision-making aids and efficient
decision-making mechanisms.

3.4.4 Free flight

Another way of increasing capacity would be to use all the space available rather than to
concentrate traffic within pre-set routes. This, moreover, would give users extreme
flexibility. That is why the US authorities have recently set themselves the objective of
making free flight possible.

Nevertheless, the ATC techniques used today (see Appendix 1) require aircraft to follow
pre-set routes so that controllers know where their traffic is; consequently, free flight
appears, at this stage, to be a particularly ambitious objective, and one difficult to achieve
in the short term. As the work carried out in the United States seems to suggest, it would
probably mean shifting some responsibility from the controller to the pilot, the latter being
responsible for deciding on the simplest collision avoidance manoeuvres to take. More
detailed thought will also have to be given to the development of traffic flow management
techniques and their integration into air traffic control. It is thus probable that free flight
will take some time to develop, and might even not be achievable in the core area of Europe
if it is to be truly "free".

In the shorter term, however, there is nothing to prevent additional routes being created to
offer users more direct itineraries; and to "dilute" the traffic by putting more aircraft into
a given volume of airspace. Paradoxically, although the controller's task is, in some
respects, facilitated by channelling traffic along air routes, it also makes it more complex,
particularly where these routes intersect.

If the number of routes is to be increased they must become independent of ground-based

navigational aids (navaids). Alternatively, there must be smaller lateral separations between
airways than those in force today.

Although modern navigational equipment using conventional ground navaids enables pilots
to follow any route they choose between reporting points without co-located navaids, they
do not yet allow lateral separations to be reduced. The navigational precision required to
achieve this objective (2 km) will become possible only if there is a denser network of DME
stations or if satellite navigation systems come to be used as the principal means of
navigation.

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 These considerations have given rise to the development of the concept of area navigation
(RNAV), which is more realistic in the short term than the objective of free flight and is
particularly advantageous for terminal areas where the dilution of traffic by multiple
approach and departure patterns would compensate for the concentration of traffic which
results from converging arrivals and departures.

It has already been decided that the first stage of implementing this concept - Basic Area
Navigation (BRNAV) -, enabling new routes to be created, will begin on 1 January 1998.
Not until the second stage, however, - Precision Area Navigation (PRNAV) - planned for
2005 will the most significant improvements take place, with a reduction in the longitudinal
separations between routes or approach and departure tracks. Its implementation largely
depends on the production and certification of more accurate navigation systems such as the
GNSS.

Comment : There is also a need for additional financial resources to speed up the
standardisation work on precision area navigation (PRNAV) and to produce
a European component of the future GNSS which can be used as a primary
means of navigation.

3.5 Developing the basic infrastructure

Developing ATC capacities means considerable expenditure within the framework of the
national CIPs. According to the figures made available for the fourth ministerial meeting
of ECAC in June 1994, an average of 1 200 MECU have been spent each year by the
ECAC States since 1990 to improve their ATM infrastructures and it is generally admitted
that the same amount of money needs to be invested each year at least up to 1998 in order
to achieve the objectives of the ECAC en-route strategy.

While it is clearly a responsibility for the ECAC countries and in particular for their ATC
service provides, to make the necessary investment, various Community funds can be used
to help implement them, and a large number of applications for such assistance have already
been submitted by the Member States and associate States.

To enable these funds to be used as efficiently as possible, it has been found necessary to
draw up a strategy in terms of investment priorities at European level over the next five
years, in order to make sure that they will be allocated to support these projects which
would yield the best results in terms of improving capacity and safety.

Accordingly, the Commission and EUROCONTROL have launched a smdy aimed at

identifying, the most beneficial technical changes which concluded that priority should be
given to projects which improve :

- the continuity and quality of surveillance in Europe;

- the coverage and quality of the communication system;
- the interoperability of ATC systems and the automation of operational coordination.

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 In addition, steps must be taken to create a European component for the global navigation
satellite system which, in January 1994, the Community decided to make one of its
priorities.2

Detailed technical descriptions of the guidelines for such projects are given in Appendix 3.

In the course of 1995, the Commission has held a series of meetings with experts from the
Member States to confirm and flesh out this strategy. It has invited industry representatives
to attend these meetings so as to stimulate public/private sector partnership initiatives, as
requested by the European Council.

Nevertheless, at this stage projects remain too "national" and it has not been possible to
stimulate multinational co-operation for developing implementation projects. Even more, the
lack of a comprehensive picture makes it difficult to evaluate the benefits in terms of the
overall effect of implementing these various national projects, or the need for the financial
aid requested. It is therefore not possible at this stage to evaluate if the requested funding
is really necessary to increase capacity in areas where the local ATC service provider would
not have the necessary resources to meet the targets agreed collectively.

Even if the outlook for feasability studies and large scale demonstration projects is more
satisfactory, thanks in particular to the work carried out by EUROCONTROL in the
framework of its STAR programme, there is a risk that the same shortcomings will arise
at the implementation stage.

This situation confirms largely the statements in previous Section 3.1. about not only the
need for more stringent common objectives, but also of financial tools to stimulate their
achievement.

It appears also that as far as implementation of infrastructure is concerned, co-operation is

not spontaneous. Since joint action can hardly be dictated, it should be encouraged thjough
financial tools, whenever joint action would prove more cost-effective for the collectivity
at large.

Comment : While recognising that the provision of infrastructure is primarily a matter

for individual countries, there is a need to reinforce consistency and
co-operation between them. As far as this is concerned, there is a lack of
decision-taking structures, and financial tools to support a real investment
policy and stimulate co-operative action.

2
COM(94) 238 final, 14.6.1994.

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 3.6. Human resources

The ECAC Ministers, at their meeting in London in March 1992, asked for a report to be
drawn up on the manpower requirements necessary to implement the remaining phases of
the current ECAC strategy. Such an exercise is vital if common objectives are to be attained
and consistency is to be achieved between different systems. Shortage of trained manpower
in one area should not be allowed to affect the effectiveness in other areas, and thereby
jeopardise the overall efficiency of the system.

3.6.1. Manpower planning

In response to the Ministers' request, EUROCONTROL formed a working group to smdy

personnel issues, with a mandate to examine the availability, deployment and motivation of
air traffic controllers. This group presented its first report in July 1993, according to which
there will be a shortage of controllers in the ECAC area up until at least 1997. This will
obviously have a direct impact on the capacity offered.

In the light of these findings the EATCHIP Project Board set up a Human Resource Team,
which at its first meeting in March 1994 drew up a programme to promote work in the
Human Resources field. The EATCHIP Human Resources Programme includes the
harmomsation of national initiatives to ensure that there is, across the ECAC area, sufficient
highly trained and motivated manpower. But if this co-operative and co-ordinated approach
seems appropriate to overcome the shortage of qualified operational personnel, the lack of
transparency in terms of the availability of accurate and up to date figures remain a major
obstacle to progress in this field. Successful manpower planning depends on precise analyses
of current resources and anticipated needs; and to this end ECAC partners should work
closely together to make the necessary information available.

Comment : It would also be advisable to set up appropriate procedures to ensure that

common objectives are adopted and applied in the field of human resources.
To do so there is a lack of decision-making aids and of efficient
decision-making mechanisms.

3.6.2. Training

Achieving a "seamless" ATM system in Europe requires a closer alignment of existing

systems, and as such will have major implications for the recruitment, training, organisation
and management of human resources. A smdy undertaken on behalf of the Commission in
1992 into 'Standards in ATC Schools of the EEC States'3 highlights the major differences
which currently exist between the recruitment and training procedures in the Member States.

Study of standards in the ATC schools of EEC States. Dr. R. Baldwin - 31.12.1992.

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 The study concludes :

States have widely different forms of training programmes, of varying duration. Within
the training programmes there are formal courses at the training centres: these also
differ widely in terms of specific courses, and the order and way in which they are
combined to meet local needs.

many ATC training staff lack recent operational experience which lowers the level of
tuition;

there is a great diversity in present educational entry requirements for trainees (school
leaving age / post-university studies);

few training centres are inspected by an outside body.

Harmomsation of recruitment and training procedures is therefore necessary to maintain and

enhance the quality of performance and the level of safety. These objectives could probably
be best obtained by establishing standards for common core training and a system of
personnel licensing. Recourse to the latter would not only ensure high quality standards but
also provide a highly trained mobile workforce.

Furthemore, the introduction of such provisions will require regular inspection and control
by an independent outside body to ensure that standards are maintained.

Comment : there is a lack of decision-making aids and of efficient decision-making

structures to examine the possibility of developing systems for recruiting and
licensing air traffic controllers, and for establishing procedures for
harmonising training programmes and certifying training facilities.

3.7. Development of new concepts and use of higher-performance technologies.

The forecast traffic growth over the next 15 years shows that long term solutions to current
ATM problems require a huge increase of ATC capacity. Consequently, the RTD activities
shall be targeted at enabling an Air Traffic Management System to be put into service from
2005 onwards with the capacity to meet projected demand well into the next century. This
system would rely heavily on technology development to provide communication, navigation
and surveillance functions with the required accuracy, reliability, availability and integrity,
together with a significant level of automation of the air traffic control functions to enable
controllers to handle the necessary volume of traffic safely. Such a system should provide
an integrated approach to Air Traffic Management, including ATM at the airport, from pre-
departure planning (strategic and tactical) through all flight and ground control phases to
passenger disembarkation at the final destination.

A description of the views of the Commission on building the future European Air Traffic
Management is given in Appendix 4.

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 A first limited (8 MECU) initiative of the Commission in this area was carried out in the
context of the Transport Programme (Euret) of the 2nd Framework Programme (1987-91),
with research into on ATM scenarios, Aeronautical Telecommunication Networks (ATN)
and Controller Working Positions. In the 4th Framework Programme (1994-98), and
through the Preparatory actions (APAS '94), considerably more resources (around 110
MECU) are being dedicated to ATM through the Transport, Industrial and Materials
Technologies and Telematics Programmes, constituting a comprehensive approach to the
development of the future system, which will be pursued in the 5th Framework Programme.
The ATM and airport activities of the individual programmes have been developed within
the framework of ECARDA 4 (European Coherent Approach to Research and Development
in ATM), which in turn is designed to integrate with the activities of Eurocontrol, the
European Space Agency (ESA) and the Member States.

For its part EUROCONTROL is managing huge programmes for testing and validating new
concepts and tools, the STAR5 and PHARE6 Programmes, which amount to an average of
60 MECU per year. Being financed through ATC user charges, and users being reluctant
to pay for long term research, this Programme is aiming primarely at short and medium
term applied research. The work is largely done by the EUROCONTROL Experimental
Center.

Finally several European countries have their own RTD activities, but, despite the attempts
made in the framework of ECARDA, there is little knowledge on their precise content and
cost. There seems also to be very little dissemination of their results.

All these efforts in progress should be improved by means of a continuous co-ordination

process involving all interested parties; and enabling to advise, plan and monitor the RTD
activities. This has been largely recognised by various studies sponsored by the Commission
or EUROCONTROL (PRAISE)7 to examine how to manage efficiently the RTD activities
in Europe and facilitate the transition from research towards implementation

This should result in proposals for further RTD actions ; and in selection of the appropriate
components and technologies to be put into operation, starting from the process of their
validation through demonstrations, to their development by standardisation activities until
their implementation as infrastructure projects.

Suggestion of themes, where further RTD activities are needed, should help building
workprogrammes for all RTD actions, funded by the Community, European countries or
any existing or future specialist organisation.

Where a component or technology is considered sufficiently mature to start its

implementation, further initiatives should be taken to ensure that the previous RTD actions
result in follow-up projects (see section 3.5 and appendix 3). The operational and pre-

SEC (94) 1475 of 13.09.94

STAR : Studies, Test and Applied Research

6
PHARE : Programme for Harmonised ATM Research in EUROCONTROL

7
PRAISE : Preparation of an RTD programme in support of EATMS.

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 operational environment, which has been simulated in RTD activities, should be
experimented in a full scale.

RTD activities could suggest a degree of technical development, requiring the drafting of
standards before implementing the component or technology. The whole standardisation
process starts, in most cases, from draft specifications resulting from a RTD activity. This
is the third area where the co-ordination process should provide a consolidated view of those
RTD activities which shall produce draft standards eligible for being proposed as
contributions to the European and worldwide standardisation process.

Even so, in order to produce the benefits of this consolidated view in due time, Research
and Technical Development activities need to be further increased and focused appropriately
so that scarce financial and human resources are used as efficiently as possible. This implies
that a real research policy is developed and that appropriate structures are put in place in
order to select the most promising options, co-ordinate actions by the various participants
and advise on timely standardisation and implementation so that benefits of new technologies
can be reaped at the most appropriate time.

Comments : while recognising that the final decision in RTD activities remains the
responsibility of individual countries, the European Community, and any specialist
organisation, there is a need to reinforce consistency and co-operation between them.

4. Controlling the costs

While increased ATC capacity in Europe must produce improvements in the service
provided and hence, by reducing delays, cost savings benefitting the public at large, there
is also a price to be paid which is beginning to cause concern to air space users who, in
Europe at least, have to foot the entire bill for the service provided, through user charges.

Taking into account the increasing importance of air transport in modern economies, it is
essential that everything possible be done to keep these costs to a minimum, in order to
enhance the competitiveness of the European States.

This presupposes a need both to review existing cost structures, and ways of reducing costs,
but also to look at the scope for a more rational approach to technological choices and
investment through the development of analytical cost-benefit tools adapted to the air traffic
management sector.

It is in this spirit that this chapter looks at the various areas where action could favourably
influence changes in the pattern of costs which are ultimately borne by the user.

4.1. The route network

Due to the controlling strategies used so far (see Appendix 1) aircraft are obliged to follow
predetermined routes which make up the overall air route network.

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 A number of objective or subjective constraints (location of navaids, interconnection of
arrival/departure trajectories, simplification of control tasks, bypassing of military areas,
frontier mapping, etc) have brought about a situation where the experts believe that, on
average, aircraft cover a distance 10% greater than the length of the most direct flight
routes. This entails significant extra costs, estimated at 1 500 million ecus per year for
Europe as a whole.

By contrast, however, the effects on costs of ATC constraints on flight profiles, whereby
aircraft are obliged to observe flight levels Which differ from the optimum profile, are only
negligible.

Taking into account the necessary compromises associated with the reduction of distances
travelled and the objective constraints referred to above, in particular the need to maximise
the total capacity of the airspace, the experts consider that it would be possible to reduce
by 4% the distances travelled in Europe, resulting in an annual saving of 600 million ECU
(INSTAR smdy).

This is a further reason for revising the route network and introducing the concept of area
navigation without delay (PRNAV).

Such a revision may nevertheless have significant implications for traffic orientation
schemes, and hence an impact on the income of ATC service providers which should not
be ignored. Accordingly any decision in this field will require difficult arbitration between
many conflicting interests.

Comment : a comprehensive restructuring of European airspace, on the basis of

cost-efficiency, regardless of national boundaries, requires additional means
and resources, an objective assessment of the chosen solutions; and an
effective decision-taking structure.

4.2. Service production costs.

Until very recently, air navigation services were provided by national administrations or by
organisations of comparable status in the form of a public service, for which the first
priority was to meet safety objectives. This has not always resulted in optimum cost
efficiency, especially since, even when the service is charged to the users, charges are
calculated so as to cover all the expenditures regardless of their amount.

Changes in thinking and pressure from users are beginning to call this situation into
question, and it would be useful to examine whether there are ways of supporting and
encouraging this new tendency. According to assessments made in the course of the
INSTAR smdy, improved cost efficiency in the production of control services would enable
savings to be made to the tune of 600 million ecus per year in Europe - that is, between 20
and 25% of the total costs.

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 4.2.1. Operation

Since 80% of costs are operating costs - 58% for staff expenditure and 22% for
miscellaneous operating expenditure - it follows that the most significant improvements
should be sought in the area of day-to-day management.

Against this background, certain people criticise the number of control centres in Europe
and advocate regrouping them in a reduced number of larger centres so as to take advantage
of economies of scale. At the same time, others argue that reducing the size of centres will
contribute to improvements in the quality of human relations and the working environment,
and hence productivity, which would cancel out any economies of scale of fewer, larger
centres.

However that may be, comparisons carried out so far between centres do not show any link
between costs and the size of centres.

It seems better, therefore, to rely on the ability of the executives and managers to achieve
the best possible cost efficiency, taking into account their political and social environment
and traditions. As mentioned in the INSTAR study, this should aim primarily at reducing
the cost of support personnel and miscellaneous operating expenditure, as well as
controllers' productivity.

Comment : the present situation is caracterised by the lack of adequate cost control and
the need to set up the appropriate institutional framework in which ATC
providers would be encouraged to improve their efficiency and managerial
skills.

4.2.2. Investment

Accounting as it does for 20% of total costs, investment is also an area which merits more
detailed examination, all the more so as more than a third is accounted for by interest
payments on loans.

Public contracts for the purchase of supplies and services for the production of air
navigation services are covered in the Community by Directives 93/36/EEC and
93/50/EEC, respectively, when the contracting party is the State; "or by Directive 93/38
when it is an agency enjoying exclusive or special rights. In all cases, the technical
specifications applicable to the contracts must comply with those laid down in
Directive 93/65/EEC.

All in all, a suitable legal framework for ensuring transparency and normal competitive
functioning in the award of contracts already seems to exist throughout Europe.
Nevertheless, there is evidence of de facto partitioning of certain markets which is
attributable, it would appear, to insufficient efforts to achieve standardisation in this sector.

Comment : there is clearly a lack of standardisation in this area, which hinders the
development of a free market for ATM equipment and services.

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 While investors in the sector do not experience any major difficulties in obtaining financing,
given the guarantees they are able to offer and the procedures for recovering costs, such
financing is nevertheless expensive.

In point of fact, the interest burden included in the costs appears particularly heavy, which
would seem to point to excessive borrowing for the financing of infrastructures, and hence
insufficient own funds and insufficient reliance on self-financing.

Joint-venture partnerships between the public and private sectors should therefore be
encouraged with a view to creating a more rational financial environment for the provision
of air navigation services.

4.2.3. Cooperation/competition

Up to now the position has been that the provision of air navigation services constitutes a
natural monopoly because, first, given the methods employed it is not possible for the same
air space to be controlled by two different controllers; and, secondly, the related
communication, navigation and surveillance services are also, by and large, provided by the
same control service providers.

Against this background, the search for optimum economic efficiency should rely in a first
instance on the promotion of international cooperation in order to gain advantage from every
possible economy of scale: joint use of equipment (notably in the case" of communications,
navigation and surveillance); awarding combined contracts for supplies and services;
establishing joint control centres, etc. To this end, the development of initiatives such as
CEATS - the Nordic initiative - and numerous bilateral or multilateral cooperation
agreements are particularly welcome and should be encouraged.

Nevertheless, in the longer run the quest for economic efficiency should also focus on the
possibility of creating a more competitive environment which could stimulate still further
cost reductions.

Indeed, the development of modern communication and navigation technologies, notably

through the use of satellites, opens up the prospect of the emergence of a certain degree of
competition in the provision of communication, navigation and surveillance services.

Private communications networks, which already enable passengers on board aircraft to call
up people on the ground, could thus provide an alternative to the aeronautical mobile service
provided they can comply with the levels of safety, reliability, availability and efficiency
required for ATM. These same networks, linked to sufficiently accurate navigation
facilities, could also offer an alternative (ADS8) to radar surveillance.

Automated Dependant Surveillance

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 As for navigation facilities, both today's inertial navigation systems and the satellite
navigation techniques of the near future also offer competitive alternatives to the
navigational aids networks owned by the control service providers, if they can be certified
as sole means navigational aids.

Apart from adequate economic viability, the development of these technical alternatives into
competitive services also presupposes the opening-up of the market in terms of developing
a set of neutral standards and certification procedures to enable potential new service
providers to develop and market alternative services.

Comment : separating regulatory/certification functions from operational ones would

certainly facilitate new service providers to enter the market.

As for the ATC services themselves as well as any other service which should continue to
be provided on a monopoly bais, it would appear legitimate to apply to these services the
rules normally used to control monopolies and to avoid abuses of dominant position. In
accordance with the Treaty, it is a matter for the States concerned, under Community
control, to fulfil this economic regulatory role in the framework of their traditions and their
policies on the provision of public utility services. This could result in certain States opting

for fixed-term concession formulas, thus developing another form of competition among
different service providers, whether public or private, as is already the case with regard to
the provision of control services at certain UK airports.

4.3. Development of methods of economic analysis

As seen earlier, there is a price to be paid for the development of capacity and the reduction
of inefficiencies, and the economic viability of certain technical options cannot be
guaranteed in advance.

As seems to be the case with most current equipment plans and investment decisions in the
field of ATM, the CIP is based on purely operational considerations. Little is known of the
costs of implementing it; and the improvements that may be expected as a result have not
been quantified.

There is a risk that this shortcoming will have even more serious consequences when it
comes to choosing new concepts or deciding on the implementation of new technologies.

This has led the aeronautical community, under pressure from the users, to consider setting
up economic indicators and cost-benefit analysis tools designed to rationalize the options.

This is a difficult exercise, and the degree of complexity involved depends on the
geographical scale on which it is conducted as well as the technical nature of the projects
under consideration. The same factors also affect the validity of the exercise, because of the
interdependence of the various service providers, and the significant degree of interplay
between the various elements making up the air traffic control system.

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 While analysis at local or national level can be envisaged in the case of projects of limited
scope (notably with a view to assessing their financial viability), the correct determination
of the economic viability of the majority of projects covered by the CIP calls for analysis
on a European scale.

Moreover, simply carrying out such an analysis requires an ability to assess correctly the
costs and benefits, and this is no simple matter in the case of a "product" that does not
correspond to goods or services offered for sale at a specific price.

As far as costs are concerned, it will therefore be necessary to pay particular attention to
defining the effects on the level of charges of the measures and investment planned, in order
to quantify their impact.

In the case of benefits, while conventional methods can be used to assess the results as far
as the community is concerned, especially in the area of safety, it will be necessary to
develop new indicators that are relevant to this particular sector. Since the essential gains
from any action must involve the reduction of delays and the satisfaction of demand, these
indicators must be capable of quantifying, in a neutral and objective way, changes in ATC
capacity, demand and delays.

As regards this last indicator, there is a well-known further problem due to the difficulty
of isolating the causes of delays actually recorded in such a way as to separate those that
are attributable to ATM from those linked to airport congestion or other operational causes.
In order to tackle this question more effectively, the creation of a Central Office for Delay
Analysis (CODA), as envisaged by EUROCONTROL and ECAC, is a necessary
development.

Comment : In this area there is a clear lack of decision-making aids. In particular, there
is a need to :

- develop mathematical models for quantifying the impact of measures

contained in the CIP in order to verify how far they will ensure user
satisfaction in terms of capacity and quality of service to be provided; and

- conduct appropriate cost-benefit analyses for the optimisation of the

choices of concept, technology or equipment, on the basis of a method of
assessment suitably adapted to the ATM sector. This presupposes closer
cooperation in the exchange of economic and technical data on projects
as well as operating and processing costs and delay analysis.

4.4. Cost recovery

Today, most European States recover their costs through charges.

These charges are in line with ICAO recommendations, in that they seek to recover only
the costs incurred for the provision of air navigation services as such, excluding any profits
or returns on the capital invested, except where loans are involved. Furthermore, they are
calculated in terms of the distance travelled (i.e. the extent of the service actually provided)
and the aircraft mass (i.e. its taxable capacity). In the area covered by the Multilateral

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 Agreement relating to Route Charges, which is operated by the EUROCONTROL Central
Route Charges Office (CRCO) on behalf of the Contracting States, the distance flown is
based on a standard route - the Most Frequently Flown Route (MFUR) between two
airports. These routes are updated annually. Lastly, the charges are imposed on all users
uniformly without discrimination or variation (although, in certain States, domestic services
are not charged at the same rate as international services).

While this pricing policy has been well received and accepted by most users, it nevertheless
produces many adverse effects :

as seen in paragraph 4.2.2., it leads to an unfavourable cost structure by encouraging

borrowing instead of the use of providers' own funds;

it is not conducive to the promotion of public/private partnerships, since there is no

return on the capital invested;

- it is hardly conducive to better cost efficiency, since costs will always be covered;

it is not conducive to a commercial approach to the provision of air navigation services,

since the user must pay for the cost of the service whatever its quality, over which,
moreover, he has no control. This defect is further exacerbated by the MFUR method
of calculating and redistributing the charge, since a State can receive a fee for flights
which would have deliberately avoided its airspace, whereas the State which actually
provided the service will receive nothing;

it does not allow the pricing policy to be used as a tool for ensuring that better use is
made of the available ATC capacity.

In order to alleviate these disadvantages,it should be considered whether, without calling

into question the basic principles which underlie cost recovery - notably payment by the user
of the service provided and non-discrimination - more flexibility could be introduced in the
methods of calculating and redistributing charges.

Comment : The cost recovery policy should be reformed so that :

- only the service actually provided is paidfor (i. e. abandoning the flat-rate
method);
- the fees are fixed in such a way as to include a certain margin of risk,
whether in losses or profits. This will require safeguards to ensure that
deficits from one year cannot be carried over for inclusion in the costs of
subsequent years; and that increases in fees are subject to economic
controls.

Thought should also be given to the possible effects on demand of appropriate variation to
the fees. Consideration of this aspect must, it would appear, form part and parcel of the
other considerations suggested above with a view to achieving a better balance between
supply and demand.

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 5. Optimising the use of available ATC capacity

As early as the 1970s the aeronautical community had recognised the need to manage air
traffic demand in order to avoid overloads incompatible with the maintenance of ATC safety
standards. The objective was essentially to keep on the ground aircraft which would
otherwise have been in airspace where it would have been impossible to handle them safely
at the time. A number of national Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) Units were
created to manage this process.

The crisis at the end of the 1980s highlighted the strategic importance of ATFM and the
need to carry it out on a European scale in order to benefit from an overall view and
make efficient use of ATC capacity. This resulted in the agreement to create the Central
Flow Management Unit (CFMU) managed by EUROCONTROL and operating on behalf
of all 33 States of ECAC - that is, most countries in Europe.

ATFM has become an essential aspect of ATM because it is economically unjustifiable to

provide ATC capacity at a level to cope with the highest traffic peaks. It is therefore
necessary to live with an acceptable level of undercapacity. The ATFM mechamsms are
also needed to deal with crisis situations when capacity is reduced for unplanned reasons
such as strikes, equipment failures, airspace closure, etc.

In its Communication on Congestion and Crises in ATM, the Commission has described in
detail the mechamsms used to manage air traffic flows in Europe.

These mechamsms depend mainly on voluntary action and the goodwill of those
involved. The latter consider that the mechamsms are, in general, satisfactory; and have
great hopes that the full implementation of the CFMU will improve their operation and
efficiency.

The Commission has nevertheless concluded that it would be useful to consider whether
introducing a minimum degree of obligation, or indeed incentive, to promote further
co-operation depending on the situation, could strengthen and accelerate that improvement;
and suggested the following areas for further action.

5.1. Planning

The main weakness of the existing planning mechamsms for ATFM is the lack of
certainty. Whilst goodwill is not in question, the insistence of each participant on retaining
as much flexibility as possible hinders serious advance planning. The result is uncertainty
and increased real-time activity as operators try to negotiate improved slots or alternative
routes.

Changing this situation would involve all participants, and would require great efforts to
better evaluate and balance demand and capacity through improved co-operative
mechanisms.

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 5.2. Capacity

It would be desirable to develop a standard method and analysis tools for determining ATC
sector capacity, and to establish procedures for common capacity planning. The results of
such planning should be binding - except in conditions of force majeur - and should be used
by airspace users and airports to better plan and organise their own activities.

This work should be co-ordinated by the CFMU, which could indeed be given sufficient
authority to take decisive actions.

5.3. Demand

If it is recognised that aircraft operators must have the flexibility to meet market
requirements, it is also accepted that a minimum of realism and self control should
be introduced in the planning of their activities if passengers are to receive the service that
they deserve.

To achieve this goal, planning by both airspace users and airports should give more
consideration to ATC restrictions. This would require that they are allowed, consistent with
anti-trust law, to meet and co-ordinate in order to make better use of the available capacity.
Pressure to co-operate in the process might be applied by requiring airports and aircraft
operators to publish puncmality figures so that passengers could see which are planning
realistically and which are not.

A detailed analysis of the possibility of integrating airport slot allocation mechanisms and
the air traffic flow management process should be carried out.

5.4. Priority rules

The underlying priority principle in ATFM is the "first come - first served" queue. It
would be useful to consider for each phase of ATFM operations what priority rules would
lead to the most efficient use of the available capacity and what compromises might
be necessary in order to make such rules acceptable to all concerned.

In so doing, consideration should also be given to the need for the CFMU to be provided
with a proper legal basis for its work. This must give authority to its decisions whilst at
the same time defining the framework within which it is empowered to act.

5.5. Management of crisis situations.

Although it is accepted that the mechamsm put into place by EUROCONTROL should be
left to demonstrate its effectiveness, it would also benefit from additional political support.

The examination of priority rules referred to above should also include the consideration of
special rules which might be invoked in crisis situations. These would have to be supported
by a decision making mechamsm for authorising the CFMU to apply the modified rule in
any given circumstances.

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 It would be useful for planning purposes to establish a common standard of minimum
service levels to be provided in case of industrial action, particularly if the standard was
defined in such a way as to limit the interference to international overflying traffic.

The difficulty of obtaining agreement between Unions and Management in this area is not
underestimated, but it is considered that the potential benefits are such as to make the effort
worthwhile.

Comment : In its Communication on congestion and crisis the Commission concluded

that a number of actions were needed in this area, but reserved its position
on the most appropriate institutional arrangements to manage air traffic
flows.
It is nevertheless clear, from the analysis developed in the Commission's
Communication, that Europe needs an appropriate body, based on the
CFMU, empowered with enough means and authority to plan air traffic
flows, predetermine ATC capacities to be provided and, if required, allocate
available capacity according to rules established in advance.

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 Appendix I

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL PRACTICE

Air traffic control is a service provided to airspace users, with the objective of keeping
them a safe distance apart.

In sectors with heavy public air traffic, this service is a sine qua non for the development
of air transport. In this respect, it is very different from other traffic management
services which are optional (apart from in certain shipping lanes) and are designed, above
all, to optimize traffic flow or fleet management.

After the first mid-air collision (in Vienna in 1910), there was a clearly perceived need
for rules on air traffic so that aircraft would apply common rules to avoid one another.
With the advent of blind flight and of ever faster aircraft, these were no longer enough
and pilots could no longer prevent mid-air collisions on their own. They then had to turn
to outside help, from air traffic controllers.

Of course, the sky seems vast and empty. But according to a smdy in the USA, without
air traffic control the risk of mid-air collisions in densely crowed airspace, such as over
Western Europe, would be 100 times higher. In other words, the probability of an
accident would be intolerable.

What is controlled?

Virtually all aircraft carrying members of the public and operating in conditions making
visual flight impossible need an ATC service. To achieve this, the aircraft must be
equipped for instrument flight, with an indication of their altitude and position and the
possibility of establishing radio contact with the control authorities at any time.
Similarly, the crew must hold IFR (instrument flight rules) qualifications. Finally, for
each flight users must lodge a flight plan informing the control authorities of their
intentions (route, flight levels, departure and arrival times, time of passing certain
landmarks, location devices, survival kit, etc.). This is a sort of contract which must be
submitted to all the air traffic authorities which need to know of the flight.

Military aircraft are also monitored, despite their very different performance and roles.
They fly very high or very low and perform interception operations, provide support for
troops on the ground or carry out bombing hussions. In order to do so, they must have
training grounds, which they cannot share, with other types of traffic for safety reasons.
They interfere with general air traffic only when they fly between their bases and these
restricted areas. Coordination is therefore needed to ensure flight safety. In most
countries, military flights are controlled by military controllers who provide the requisite
coordination with their colleagues in the civil sector. Some countries with very heavy

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civil and military air traffic have preferred to entrust one and the same control body with
this phase of military flights too, as in Germany and the USA.

Where

Wherever the nature of the flights (instrument flights, commercial flights, high-speed
flights, etc.) and traffic density dictate. Accordingly, in Western Europe all the upper
airspace (over 6 000 m) is controlled, plus the airways (rectangular corridors 18 km wide
and at an altitude of between 1 500 m and 6 000 m protecting an air route in the lower
airspace), terminal control areas in the vicinity of airports containing standard take-off and
landing paths between the runways and the air routes (between 900 m altitude or 300 m
above ground level and a sufficient altitude to allow the necessary operations) and airport
control areas linking the terminal control areas to the ground around major airports. No
control service is provided outside these areas, particularly close to the ground, where the
aircraft which need ATC services rarely fly, leaving this space free for light aircraft. The
same applies outside the airways, since in Europe this space is often occupied by military
areas reserved for operational training for the armed forces.

Generally, ATC services are provided for aircraft following predetermined routes, i.e. on
the network of airways which cross the airspace. Consequently, aircraft are not free to
take the shortest route, but must follow these paths. It is generally acknowledged that in
Europe this adds, on average, 10% to the distances flown. However, it seems difficult
to overcome this constraint with the current control technology, since air traffic
controllers need to position their traffic on such routes in order to do their job.

In regions with less dense traffic, there are vast uncontrolled areas where users are
nevertheless provided with a flight information service (weather reports, traffic in the
vicinity, distress alert).

How?

Air traffic control consists of keeping aircraft a safe distance apart, based on a knowledge
of the position of the aircraft in a r'v n sector. Consequently, the separation between
aircraft will depend on the precision with which the position of the aircraft is known,
which, in turn, depends on the instruments used to determine the position and speed of
the aircraft en route or approaching. In accordance with the precision of the altimeters,
the standard vertical separation is 300 m up to an altitude of 9 000 m and 600 m above
that. The horizontal separation can vary between 225 km in the case of aircraft on the
same route if their position is known only from their own reports (procedural control) and
5.5 km in the case of aircraft approaching under radar control. The separation between
aircraft en route under radar control is 9 km, although this must be increased where the
performance of the radar equipment is inadequate, as it still is in certain parts of Europe.

If two aircraft come closer together than the standard separation, this is known as an "air
miss". Pilots and air traffic controllers must report such incidents. Analysis of air misses
gives an idea of the safety standards provided by the system and allows the requisite
corrective measures. In some ATC centres this is backed up by automatic conflict
detection methods, where the controllers are assisted by computer.

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To perform this task, all aircraft in a given control sector are placed under the
responsibility of an air movements team (one principal controller and two assistants) who
must take control of any possible interference between aircraft. Taking account of the
pressure of work which this entails and of the control aids available today, it is
universally accepted that not more than 15 to 20 aircraft may be in the same sector at the
same time, depending on the complexity of the traffic handled (number of air route
crossings, configuration of the landing/take-off paths, transfer to and from sectors
alongside, above or below, etc.). Airspace capacity therefore depends on the number of
sectors into which the airspace can be divided. However, there is a limit since if the
sectors are too small the aircraft will not stay in them long enough for potential conflicts
to be detected and resolved before they arise. At the same time, the workload for
negotiating transfers from one sector to the next will be heavier and the sectors' unit
capacity lower. A compromise must therefore be struck between the size and number of
sectors. This is what determines airspace capacity.

The sectors are brought together under control centres, which provide a means of
combining them in line with variations in demand and of adapting supply to demand.
Today, there are 42 encroûte control centres in Western Europe to control the upper
airspace, air routes and terminal control areas. In the USA, 21 en-route control centres,
backed up by 189 terminal radar control (TRACON) facilities, handle six times as much
traffic.

To avoid overloading the sectors, and the potential consequences for flight safety, air
traffic flow management (ATFM) mechamsms have gradually been developed to detect
any such risks of congestion in advance and to ground any aircraft which would have had
to fly in a saturated sector. The development of these mechanisms and their growing use
in air traffic management were described in the Commission communication on
congestion and crisis in air traffic (COM(95)318 final of 5 July 1995).

By whom?

The air traffic controllers are responsible for maintaining the separations. In order to do
so, they must form a mental image of the situation in their sector at any time in order to
detect potential conflicts, devise solutions and give the pilots the necessary instructions:
change flight level, slow down/accelerate, wait, change flight path, etc. To help them in
their work, air traffic controllers use small strips of paper, each representing one aircraft
and giving details of the flights. These are set out on a console representing their relative
positions. Virtually everywhere in Europe ATC controllers also have a radar image
which gives them another two-dimensional picture of air traffic. They communicate by
radio with the aircraft and by telephone with the other controllers with whom they must
coordinate transfers.

Air traffic controllers perform a complex task which is more like an art than a traditional
repetitive job. It requires a special predisposition and a very high level of training.
These features combined with the fact that the slightest lapse has immediate consequences
for the safety of hundreds of passengers mark this out as a clearly distinct profession with
its own rites and scales of values.

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Almost everywhere the controllers and the staff responsible for the equipment (electronics
engineers) and for various operational tasks (particularly flight plan processing) are
employed by the national administrations or State-owned private agencies. This State
involvement is due to the Chicago Convention which makes the States responsible for
safety in their airspace. But it is also attributable to the heavy civil and criminal liability
associated with this activity.

Virtually throughout the world ATC services are funded by charges levied on the direct
users. One notable exception is the USA where all expenditure on civil aviation safety
is funded from taxes and a charge levied on the end users, i.e. air passengers.

With what?

As mentioned earlier, air traffic control requires special equipment.

First, means of communication between the ground and the aircraft are needed to transmit
messages about the aircraft's position and ATC instructions. The ATC authorities have
established a private mobile air-to-ground communications service, principally in the VHF
(Very High Frequency) band, but also in the HF (High Frequency) band for long-range
communications. Today there are also plans to use satellite communications.

Ground-to-ground links are also needed to transmit flight plans and allow coordination
between different controllers. Another private network has been set up for this purpose,
using subsystems leased from the telecommunications operators to provide a fixed service
linking all ATC centres, airports and main users.

Navigational aids are also needed so that pilots know the aircraft's position at all times
and can inform the ATC authorities when necessary. These can take the form of
stand-alone on-board equipment, such as inertial guidance systems and Doppler radar, or
of navigational aids on the ground using different frequency ranges, depending on the
ranges to be covered, to transmit signals from which aircraft can calculate their position:
VHF omnidirectional radio range stations (VOR), distance measuring equipment (DME),
non-directional beacons (NDB), instrument landing systems (ILS), the LORAN and
OMEGA long-range navigation systems and, increasingly coming into consideration, the
GPS and GLONASS satellite systems. Consequently, to provide the navigation service,
the air traffic authorities have been setting up networks of navigational aids, some denser
than others.

Air traffic controllers also need to know the position of aircraft under their responsibility
as well as possible. The more precise and frequently updated this information, the more
the controller can reduce the separation. For this reason, position reports from aircraft
have been replaced by a stand-alone radar system which gives a comprehensive picture
updated after each turn of the antenna (every five to ten seconds). There are different
types of radar, depending on the phase of the flight. The latest radar technology can
identify the position, altitude and call sign of aircraft. Soon it will be possible to use
these radar waves to transmit other data between the ground and the air (S mode radar).

055appl.96

S"?
055appl.96

At the same time satellite technology is opening up the possibility of developing a rival
on-board Automated Dependent Surveillance (ADS) system, which would automatically
transmit the aircraft's position to the ground at all times.

All the information and resources required by air traffic controllers are brought together
at the control consoles. Telephones, microphones, video screens, strip boards, etc. are all
found there in the most ergonomie, interactive configuration possible in order to lighten
the air traffic controllers' workload and enable them to handle more aircraft at the same
time. To achieve this, computers have been introduced en masse in control centres. To
date, however, their role has remained limited to processing and displaying information.
In the most modern centres, they can also alert controllers a few minutes before a
collision risk. But they are not yet capable of proposing a strategy for resolving such
conflicts.

Within which instimtional framework?

According to the Chicago Convention adopted at the end of 1944 to lay the basis for a
global system of international air transport and its basic principle that States have full
sovereignty over their own airspace, it is their responsibility to provide air traffic services
and to mobilize the necessary resources for this purpose.

At the same time, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) was set up to
define and adopt the common rules needed to make the system interoperable so that any
one aircraft could travel anywhere in the world. This organization is also responsible for
ensuring that the services correspond as closely as possible to the needs of the users. It
may, consequently, give certain States responsibility for supplying such services to aircraft
crossing international waters.

It is nevertheless a relatively flexible framework, within which it is even possible to

notify differences from the common standards, while the undertakings given in connection
with the satisfaction of users' needs are not legally binding.

Each State is free to decide the level of service to be provided and the means to be
employed for this purpose, with the result that the technology used and the results
achieved vary tremendously from one country to another, making the overall system less
efficient than it should be.

To overcome this problem, if only in part, groups of States have felt the need to
cooperate more closely at regional level and, in some cases, to consider actually
integrating their national services. It is the reason why EUROCONTROL was up in 1960
by an international convention, to provide air traffic control for the entire upper airspace
of its Member States. This, however, represented too great a transfer of sovereignty for
some of the first Member States: even before the Convention entered into force, France
and the United Kingdom reclaimed control of the whole of their own airspace, and
Germany later largely followed suit. Thus EUROCONTROL today, via its control centre
at Maastricht, provides air traffic control only for the airspace above the Benelux
countries and Northern Germany - and then only within the framework of specific
agreements between the organization and each of the States concerned.

055appl.96

6°
055appl.96

By way of compensation, EUROCONTROL was given a greater coordinating role in

planning and research, and its Convention was supplemented by a multilateral agreement
under which it was given responsibility for collecting route charges.*

In parallel with these developments, and in view of the lessons learned from over-
ambitious attempts at integration, the ICAO reinforced the existing mechanisms for
cooperation at regional level by setting up a more permanent structure than the regional
meetings. This was the EANPG,1 which was able to meet once or twice a year if need
be and to work more or less continuously on updating and monitoring the Regional Air
Navigation Plan.

Today, EUROCONTROL has 19 Member States (the States of the European Union except Finland, Italy and Spain, plus
Cyprus, Hungary, Malta, Norway, Slovenia, Switzerland and Turkey). The multilateral agreement on route charges covers
these same countries plus Spain.
European Air Navigation Planning Group.

055appl.96 6
 Appendix 2

ATM : A QUANTITATIVE DESCRIPTION.

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Scope of the annex

This annex looks at the technical and operational aspects of the current Air Traffic
Management (ATM) system in Europe, covering all the national organisations that
provide air traffic services (ATS) to airspace users (aircraft operators), in accordance
with suitable rules and standards, for the safe, orderly and efficient movement of
aircraft in the air and on the ground.

ATS are divided into specific services :

- Air Traffic Control Service (ATC) ; it aims at preventing collisions between
aircraft or between aircraft and obstructions on the manoeuvring area ; and at
expediting and maintaining an orderly flow of air traffic ;
- Flight Information Service (FIS) ; it provides advice and information useful for
the safe and efficient conduct of flights ;
- Alerting Service ; it notifies appropriate organisations regarding aircraft in need
of search and rescue ; and assist such organisation.

Annex 1 explained that ATC :

- are the services provided by Air Traffic Control Centers to control the movements
of aircraft both on the ground and in the air by the cpntinuous tracking and
coordination of moving aircraft to keep abreast of their respective positions in
order to ensure safe separation and passage between airports;

- are delivered to airspace users in three different ways: at the airport itself, and
during landing and take-off (airport control); within the terminal airspace
surrounding an airport (approach control); and in the airspace between two
terminal areas (en-route control);

- are carried out by air traffic controllers following specific procedures with the
help of facilities and equipment capable of supporting this work.

This Annex concentrates primarily on the en-route aspect of European air traffic
management, and ATC most of all, aiming to describe it in quantitative terms to
complement the more qualitative description in Annex 1.

055app2.96 1

62,
 1.2. Methodological approach

The Annex first describes the way in which air traffic services are provided in
Western Europe (supply analysis); and then looks at precisely how users need these
services (demand analysis). Finally, it reviews the interaction between supply and
demand, and considers the quality of service that results. Wherever possible this
description is supported by figures, to illustrate both trends over past years and
correlations between variables; and references to recent studies.

With this in mind, the Annex consists of three chapters:

- Chapter 1 looks at each of the three components of the ATM system, airspace,
technical facilities and staff; _

- Chapter 2 analyses the requirements of airspace users;

- Chapter 3 looks at the acmal performance of the system as it works in practice in

terms of matching the demand for, and the supply of, Air Traffic Services.

Air traffic management consists of three main activities. Two of these concern the
supply of services (airspace management and air traffic control). And, thirdly, flow
management aims to match supply to demand:

- airspace management means the design of the structures (in the form of sectors
and routes) that enable airspace to be used according to specific procedures;

- air traffic control involves the technological and human resources necessary for
the supervision of aircraft;

- air traffic flow management improves the use of airspace by identifying and
resolving capacity problems when demand exceeds supply.

Finally, it should be borne in mind throughout that this survey looks at airspace
management in Europe generally, rather than at the area covered by the EU.

2.. HOW EUROPEAN AIR TRAFFIC SERVICES ARE PROVIDED

2.1. The structure of air traffic management

The planning and operation of Air Traffic Management in Europe is carried out on
a national basis, through the public sector, with varying degrees of coordination via
organisations such as EUROCONTROL (European Organisation for the Safety of the
Air Navigation), ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation - European region)
and the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC).

Three factors explain why Air Traffic Services are undertaken on a national basis and
by public sector bodies:

055app2.96 2

63
 - the birth of air traffic control during World War II as a means of identifying and
locating military aircraft. Its subsequent extension to civilian air services was
influenced by the original purpose of securing the defence of national airspace
against hostile aircraft;

- the Chicago Convention of 1944, which enshrined the principle of national control
over the use of sovereign airspace ;

- the perceived importance of such services, together with airlines' own services,
as vital assets influencing tfye development of national economies.

This national approach to ATC in Europe has, as a result, led to the development of
an institutional and organisational strucmre where responsibility for the provisiorrof
Air Traffic Services tends to be shared between three different bodies within national
administrations:

- the government level, with the Ministry of Transport or Communications

concerned with policy decisions;

- the management level, for which responsibility lies with the Civil Aviation
Administration or Authority (CAA);

- the operational level, where the actual provision of ATC services is usually the
responsibility of Air Navigation Services (ANS) organisations.

Detailed arrangements may vary between different countries - for instance, the ANS
organisation may itself be a part of the CAA - but, generally, the three levels will
follow this pattern:

- the government level will be concerned with supervision of the system overall,
and future investment policies;

- the management level will be responsible for ensuring the integrity of safety,
setting standards , defining strategies and future planning;

- the operational level will provide the services to airspace users, develop the
planning of future service provision and organise revenue collection in the form
of fees paid by airspace users for Air Traffic Services.

The need for an international approach to aviation matters led to the setting up of
various organisations for the development and application of common regulations and
operating procedures. ICAO was formed in 1944 as an international body for the
purpose of developing international standards and conventions for International Civil
Aviation and Air Traffic Control, in conjunction with industry bodies and national
administrations. Within Europe, ECAC was established in 1955 as an inter-
governmental organisation, supervised at Ministerial level, to oversee the European
system and propose and coordinate improvements in air transport. In the 1960s
another inter-governmental organisation, EUROCONTROL, was formed which was
originally intended to develop means of providing Upper Airspace Control Services
across all its Member States on a unified basis. In practice this was only achieved
over a relatively limited area - Benelux and North Germany. EUROCONTROL's

055app2.96 3

£4
 mandate was later extended to include the collection of route charges, the
development of standards, research and advisory services and the management of
air traffic flows at a European level.

The respective roles and responsibilities of the various national and international
bodies in terms of the three levels of ATC management functions - government,
management and operations - are summarised in the following table:

Table 2.1. - Current roles and responsibilities

Level ENTITY
-Role
National International
Min CAA ANS ECAC |ICAO Eur
Governing
- Supervision of the system • •
.
- Investment policy • •

- Standards setting • • • • •
Managing
- Safety oversight •
- Investment planning • • •

Operating
- Services provision •
- Services planning •
- Revenue collection • • •
•: i =-r-f

Legend:

• responsible
• advisor
Min = Ministry
Eur = EUROCONTROL

Eurocontrol has responsability for service provision and service planning for the Maastricht Centre and the Central Flow
Management Unit (CFMU) ; and an advisory role in other flields.

055app2.96

*r
 2.2. The complexity of airspace structure

Basic division of airspace is into :

- controlled airspace, and/or
- uncontrolled airspace.

By international agreement, airspace structures are set up in seven different airspace

control classes around fixed air routes and control zones. The service provided to
aircrafts flying on instruments (IFR) and to aircraft flying visually (VFR), reflects
the requirements of airspace users and the density of air traffic.

Air Space Management consists of two separate activities:

- Ground-based controllers control aircraft within the "sectors" of airspace for

which they are responsible. These sectors make up airspace structure:

- aircraft are piloted by their crews along "airways" which form the airspace
network.

The current strucmre of European airspace strucmre is determined, in the first place,
by the boundaries of each country's airspace. Other determining factors are
operational and technical, mainly to do with the performance of communications and
navigation aids. At operating level, Air Traffic Services infrastructure is managed in
the first place by Area Control Centres (ACCs), each of which is responsible for
supervising the use of the airspace within a territorial area (Flight Information Region
(FIR)). The airspace within each FIR is, in turn, divided into sectors in ways that
best suit the process of controlling aircraft within it.. A sector is notionally the
volume of airspace that can be controlled by a single controller; but in practice some
sectors are amalgamated with others where this makes sense in terms of traffic loads.

As well as being separated horizontally, airspace is divided vertically, generally

being divided into Upper and Lower Airspace at a specified altitude level:

- below this level is the Flight Information Region (FIR), where flights are
controlled in the climb and descent phases;

- above this level is the Upper Information Region (UIR), where flights are
controlled at their cruising altitude.

Most FIRs and UIRs share the same ACC but, in some cases, countries have
established separate Upper Air Centres (UAC).

Two countries, the UK and Portugal, operate Oceanic Area Control Centres (OACC)
to provide air traffic control over the eastern part of the North Atlantic.

Areas around principal airports may need separate systems for co-ordinating flights
to control arriving and departing flights.

The current strucmre of European airspace is summarised in table 2.2. For each
country it shows:

055app2.96 5

66
 - the area covered by the Flight Information Region;

- the flight level chosen as the boundary between the FIR and the UIR;

- the maximum number of 'single* sectors that can be operated simultaneously by

each ACC.

Table 2.2. - Airspace structure in 1995

Country Surface FIR Separation No of ATC No of Sectors

(km2) FTR/VIR Units
ACC ; VAC En-route \ APP

Austria 84000 FL245 1 i - 14 ! 6

Belgium 30500 FL 195 1 î - 4 ! 2
Denmark n.a. FL245 1 ! - 9 1 3
Finland n.a. FL245 2 î - 4 ! -/
France 768600 FL 195 61 ! - 74 î 6
1
Germany 297600 FL 245 6 ! 1 61 i 12
1
Greece 277200 FL245 3 ! - 9 ! 2
Ireland 168000 FL245 2 ! - 9 ! 3
Italy n.a. FL 245 4 ! - 28 \ 92
Luxembourg - FL245 i i

Netherlands 34000 FL 195 1 î - 6 ! 3

Portugal 276000 FL245 1 î - 5 ! 2
l
Spain 621875 FL245 5 ! - 32 ! 16
Sweden n.a. FL245 3 ! - 19 ; 8
United Kingdom 575000 FL245 3 \ - 41 1 16
Maastricht VAC n.a. - - ! i 7 ! -

1 - with the addition of one separate Approach Units

2 - 5 sectors play en-route + APP role

Source: EUROCONTROL - CIP - Stams Report 1995

055app2.96 6
 2.3. The configuration of the airspace network

The European airspace structure consists of a network offixedroutes. These routes

were originally aligned according to the siting of navigational aids - usually close to
airports. This means that routes normally follow dog-leg paths, and cross one another
frequently at points where it is particularly important to avoid conflicts. (This pattern
may vary, but only to a degree when airspace normally reserved for military use
becomes temporarily available for civil use, allowing some more direct routeing.)
Because the route network is defined in two dimensions only, aircraft flying along
the same route on conflicting courses are assigned different flight levels. Flight levels
are spaced 1000 feet apart up to FL 290 (2900 feet), above which the spacing is 2000
feet. Even-numbered flight levels above FL 300 are not, therefore, used at present.

Table 2.1. gives an indication of the present use of flight levels based on airlines'
requests in July 1990 (EUROCONTROL figures) ; experimental studies have
demonstrated that the best cruise level for a flight of 500 NM in terms of fuel
consumption is FL 350. It is estimated that about 10% of flights in Europe are not
flown at their optimal cruising height because of ATC restrictions.

Figure 2.1. - Flight levels requested by airlines

10 15 20 25

Percentage of total flights

Source : EUROCONTROL

055app2.96 7
 2.4. Network effectiveness

Ideally, the route between two airports should be set in order to minimise the length
of a flight in terms of time and distance, so that it can be flown on the most direct
route using the most efficient vertical profile. In practice, however, there are various
constraints:

a) route design has to take account of the need to avoid areas of potential conflict
and of high traffic load; and to the need to sequence arrival traffic and segregate
arrival and departure flows ; —~

b) national borders have the effect of fragmenting available airspace;

c) military operations restrict the use of airspace;

d) the present layout of navigationals aids, particularly the siting of radio beacons,
determines routes;

e) in some cases, en-route paths will clash with airport approach "paths; and

f) weather and environmental restrictions can always play a part.

Some of these factors are interdependent (for instance, radar stations are sited to
cover national airspace) with the result that the individual effect of each on the
network layout cannot be easily isolated. Studies have been carried out by
EUROCONTROL to identify indicators which compare the lengths of the most direct
paths to those of the paths acmally followed. Although these analyses provide only
rough measures of network effectiveness they suggest that all these factors, except
weather, contribute to the problem. The studies, the results of which are summarised
in table 2.3., are qualified as follows:

. they cover a varied sample of flights, using airport pairs, over a specific period.
It is difficult, therefore, to extrapolate the results to other times of the year, or to
flights in Europe generally;

. they assume that all flights followed the routes most normally flown (according
to the EUROCONTROL Database). Acmally, the distance acmally flown could
have varied, if Air Traffic Control had altered the routeing away from these
"normal" paths.

The comparison was carried out by:

. selecting for examination a sample of routes and corresponding flights to examine;

. evaluating the distance flown according to the most commonly used itinerary, as
stored in the Database of EUROCONTROL (DBE itinerary);

055app2.96 8

01
 . evaluating the distance flown according to the theoretically most direct itinerary
between terminal areas, which represents the shortest possible routing taking into
account runway orientation (reference itinerary).

Because average flight distance of the sample became shorter towards the end of the
1980s, the influence of route design in terminal areas, as opposed to en-route design,
became proportionally more important.

Table 2.3. - Estimation of inefficient routing

Period Sample Average flight distance (Nms) Difference

(m/y) (n> of flights) (%)
DBE Reference
7/88 262,355 553 507 -9.1
7/89 330,040 522 476 9.7
7/90 441,620 474 430 10.2
9/91 470,876 453 410 10.4
9/92 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.
9/93 496,269 506 460 10.0
, 9/94 504,223 492 447 10.1

source: EUROCONTROL/Division 01

This suggests that the effect of constraints is to increase flight distances by about
10%, or around 45 Nms on average. Of this 10%, about 70% take place en route;
20% on approach to airports and 8% on departure from airport areas. According to
ECAC's INSTAR study the reasons are: ^

- problems arising where en-route routes clash with airport areas (24%);

- routes having to be designed to avoid dense traffic areas (33%);

- the need to circumnavigate military airspace (30%);

- other factors (13%).

055app2.96 9

To
 2.5. Technological resources

The airspace structure and network is greatly influenced by the equipment used to
support Air Traffic Control services. According to its function, equipment will fall
into one of three separate "domains":

- " Communications " includes all technology for transferring information needed for
navigation, surveillance and ATM. "Ground-air" is distinct from "ground-
ground", but each have separate networks for both speech and data transmission;

- "Navigation " refers to all equipment that facilitates en-route navigation by aircraft
along the routes they have to fly; —-

- "Surveillance" means all technologies that enable ground-based ATC controllers

to keep track of aircraft. The use of radar is now enhanced by the introduction of
Radar Data Processing Systems (RDPS).

Communication

Three means of comunication are now in use at ATC Centres:

- air/ground voice communications (radio-telephone),

- ground/ground voice communications (telephone),

- ground/ground data communications.

Air/ground voice communications between controller and pilot are currently carried
out by radio transmission, in HF, VHF and UHF.

High Frequency radio transmission is the only non-satellite communication system

which allows direct communication between aircraft and ground beyond the line-of-
sight. This long range communication works through the reflection of the skywave
from the ionosphere and is currently used within Europe for longhaul trans-oceanic
flights. Its performance is generally unsatisfactory for reliable communications
because it is affected by ionospheric conditions. HF is considered to be a redundant
technology about to be replaced by satellite communication systems.

VHF is the normal means of air-to-ground communications for ATC purposes for
civil aircraft. But because VHF is limited to line-of-sight, ground stations must be
sited so as to ensure that an aircraft will always be in line-of-sight of one of them
and within a maximum distance depending upon the height of the aircraft. Aircraft
overflying the European area must therefore communicate with different Centres,
changing channels frequently. Each station is allocated a frequency and stations need
a minimum physical separation from one another to avoid antenna interference.
Within the EU there are about 350 VHF stations serving major airports and ATC
Centres; but each Centre has developed its own radio communications system more
or less independently. Although care is taken to ensure sufficient overlap in coverage
and to prevent interference, technical approaches and solutions may be very different.

055app2.96 10

If
 VHF is also used occasionally for air-to-air communications, most countries
allocating for this purpose. VHF also allows aircrew to monitor all the traffic on a
particular frequency, which enables them to hear controllers' instructions to other
aircraft and thereby gain a reasonably full picture of the air traffic in the
neighbourhood.

The frequency bank currently allocated to VHF aeronautical mobile communications

is 118 to 137 MHz with a spacing of 25 kHz. There is an urgent need for additional
frequencies over and above the 760 currently available, particularly in Central
Europe. The shortfall is caused in part by poor procedures for operation and co-
ordination. To alleviate the problem it may be necessary to challenge some of the
present allocations of the VHF band and, if necessary, to reassign them. This would
improve efficiency but by itself would not solve the problem of congestion. By 1998»-
2000, however, it may be possible to increase the number of channels by reducing
the channel spacing to 8.33 kHz.

Another issue arises in times of heavy traffic. The limiting factor on the number of
aircraft a controller can handle is the communications workload demanded by the
operational, organisational and procedural requirements for handling the aircraft.
This is due not to the technical performance of the communications system, nor to
the lack of channels, nor even to aircraft separation standards. A reduction of the
workload of the controller will be only achieved by introducing some degree of
automation in aircraft handling. This will come about with the implementation of a
datalink system between the aircraft and the ATC system - between the crew and the
controller. In the longer term, Mode-S represents one of implementing a datalink
system, which would also reduce the demands on the VHF spectrum.

UHF communications are similar to the use of the VHF communication band. Their
only use for ATC in Europe is for military aircraft.

Ground/ground Voice communications are concerned, in particular, with

communications between Centres. These communications provide a common network
for exchanging information using direct speech links. In Europe, however, there is
no standard network, and a large variety of technically different communication links
and procedures are already in place at different European ACCs. The need for this
network will, however, dimmish after the introduction of an automated data link
network developed to international standards, even if voice communications continue
to play their part for resolving particular problems.

ATC voice communications are generally based on private fixed dedicated circuits
connecting every pair of control centres which need to cooperate. The
implementation of a Voice Communication Network suitable for ATC purposes
requires the provision of extensively networked circuits, compatible equipment and
standard communication procedures. For the time being, however, the basic
providers of circuits are the national public telephone organisations, and the use of
extensive link-ups across the network is not a standard feature of public telephone
systems today.

A common approach for the implementation of such a network has been developed
as part of the EATCHIP programme. This system will still be based on international
point-to-point circuits but all lines, together with the switching system, will be

055app2.96 11
 operated as a network.

Ground/ground Data Communications enable information to be exchanged between

centres, so reducing the volume of routine coordination. This information is to do
with signals, flight plans, aeronautical and meteorological reports etc. Sharing it
between different centres requires having proper data exchange links and appropriate
communications procedures.

At present, the conventional Aeronautical Fixed Telecommunications Network

(AFTN) remains the primary source for the acquisition of basic data. This network,
designed some forty years ago, connects AFTN centres in all European countries.
Most countries have a centralised system with one communications centre as a hub,
which alone communicates with other countries' networks. Conventional AFTN links-
comprise teletype systems and manually operated radiotelegraphy channels. Although
well proven, such links suffer from slow transmission and inadequate data protection.
Moreover, the particularly poor performance of certain AFTN switching centres
means that comprehensive new routeing arrangements cannot be set up. As a result,
some AFTN switches and circuits are heavily overloaded, producing message loss
and unacceptable transmission delays. For this reason a new, improved data
interchange architecture was defined by ICAO in the mid 1970s - the Common ICAO
Data Interchange Network (ODIN). The original specification was subsequently
modified to take account of the publication of the X25 communication protocol.
Introducing a CIDIN network would be accompanied by replacing or upgrading old
AFTN switches with the new CIDIN nodes and increasing the transmission speeds
of AFTN circuits. So far, the introduction of CIDIN procedures on the ICAO plan
has already taken place in some European countries (Austria, Denmark, Germany,
Greece and Spain) and is in hand in others. This should increase the overall data
signalling rate and switching capacity of the AFTN in the European area.

There are other ground-to-ground data communication networks for the exchange of
aeronautical data and of radar data. These networks are used within regions or, at
most, country-wide.

One development in communication infrastructure which will greatly improve the

automatic exchange of flight plans and system coordination data between ACCs is the
On-Line Data Interchange (OLDI). The verbal exchanges needed for traffic hand-
overs to adjacent centres represent a significant workload for controllers. The
automation of this process through the use of OLDI links has already produced
significant improvements. At present, OLDI links have been established on a bilateral
basis between centres in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Benelux,
Germany, Austria and Switzerland. These are based on logic links, from a source Air
Traffic Control computer system to a receiver ATC computer. There is no direct
relationship between the number of such links and the number of physical circuits
because relay facilities are provided at some ATC Centres; and because in some
cases the QLDI application shares the same physical circuits with other facilities. The
full benefit of this programme will be reached, however, only when all transmission
systems have been fully harmonised.

055app2.96 12

73
 Navigation

At present, navigation is carried out by means of VOR/DME (VHF Omnidirectional

Radio Range/Distance Measuring Equipment) or NDB (Non-Directional Radio
Beacon) facilities. These navaids are radio beacons, operating in VHF or MF and
emitting a constant signal. The signal, received by equipment on the aircraft, guides
it in the right direction. The use of these navaids has also contributed to perpetuating
the existing fixed-route structure, because routes are aligned according to fixed
nodes, being the points where airway beacons are located on the ground (fixes). Each
individual radio station provides route coverage more than halfway to the next fix,
so that coverage always overlaps. Waypoints along a route may be radial
intersections from other fixes; or DME fixes from stations co-located with the"
present fix, or the next fix along the route. The current distribution of navaids in the
European area is shown on a country-by-country basis in table 2.4.

Table 2.4. - Number of navaid types by country

Country VOR VOR/DME DME NDB

Austria - 11 - : 11
Belgium 1 9 - 8
Denmark 6 6 1 4
Finland 7 6 - 13
France 38 41 l 2
Germany 22 39 11 44
Greece 4 26 l 14
Ireland - 4 - 6
Italy 4 43 - 28
Luxembourg 1 1 - .. -

Netherlands - 9 - 9
Norway 8 15 - 17,
Portugal - 10 - 6
Spain 9 27 - 28
Sweden 22 14 l 9
United Kingdom 5 42 - 26
Switzerland 7 5 - 6
TOTALS 134 308 15 231

Source: ANP EUR

055app2.96 13
 The present VOR/DME navigation regime is generally considered satisfactory from
the point of view of performance and reliability. However, they inhibit the further
development of network design. The trend has been to move away from such station-
oriented systems towards the much wider coverage achieved by satellite navigation
systems: moving completely to such a system would, of course, remove one of the
major obstacles to redesigning the European route network.

Modern navigation airborne computers enable an aircraft to determine its position by

measuring its distance from two DME ground stations. This two-dimensional
navigation is accurate to about 0.25 miles and makes it possible to use RNAV with
current technology. However, legislation allowing RNAV use over continental
airspace as a sole means has not yet been put in place, standards and regulations haver-
still to be developed and, with RNAV so far used only on a limited basis, controllers
are not yet sufficiently familiar with it.

Surveillance

The use of radar to cover European airspace has enabled controllers to handle an
ever increasing level of air traffic. Before radars came into general use - and as
indeed still happens today in areas where radar coverage is deficient or non-existent -
flights were monitored by ATC on the basis of pilots' radio reports. The introduction
of radar surveillance has given ATC controllers much better information on the
progress of flights, and hence improved their ability to predict flight paths and detect
possible conflicts.

Two types of radar are used in Europe: primary radar (PSR); and secondary radar
(SSR), the most recent form of which is the monopulse secondary radar (MSSR).

Primary radar was first developed to monitor military flights. It provides positions
(in terms of range and bearing) of any target within range by means of passive
returns obtained by the reflection of radio waves directed onto the target. It therefore
needs no equipment on the aircraft itself, and is a ground-based system consisting of
two basic elements: a rotating antenna and a transmitter. Its range is from 60 nm
(short range category) up to 200 nm (long range category); the pulse repetition
frequency is from 340 Hz to 1000 Hz; and its accuracy in reporting the range and
bearing (azimuth) of an aircraft is measured by the following standard deviations:
0.03 nm for the range and 0.05 * for the azimuth. The quality of surveillance of PSR
may be affected by fixed echoes and "clutter".

"Mode A/C" secondary radar,- by contrast, is a system that makes it possible to

interrogate an aircraft within range and obtain a coded reply containing, as well as
range and bearing, the identity of the aircraft ("Mode A") and its altitude ("Mode
C"). In this case the radar system comprises both ground-based and airborne
equipment. The core elements of the ground-based radar station are the rotating
antenna, a transmitter/receiver and an extractor. The extractor processes all the
responses from an aircraft during each scan of the antenna and delivers a digital
message containing the aircraft's position, identity code and altimde. Conventional
secondary radar (SSR) and monopulse radar (MSSR) are distinguished by different

055app2.96 - 14

1Ï
 techniques used for acquiring this information.

The airborne element is the transponder, connected to the aircraft antenna. Secondary
radars have a range of up to 200 nm, and operate on a pulse repetition ranging
frequency is from 300 to 400 Hz for conventional radars and of 200 Hz for
monopulse radar. Accuracy is measured by the following standard deviations for
classical SSR radars: 0.15 nm for range and 0.2* for bearing. Monopulse radars have
the same accuracy as piimary radars. The quality of surveillance of "classical" SSR
is limited by problems of interference due to transponder saturation, while monopulse
radars have brought considerable improvements in eliminating garble, reducing
interferences and improving accuracy. Secondary radar is the core element of current
ATC systems in Europe, and the general trend now is to install monopulse systems
whose performance allows radar separations of 5 nm and less. The performance -of*"
secondary radars is restricted, however, by limited procedures; techniques for aircraft
identification that do not allow an individual code to be used; and line-of-sight
constraints.

Table 2.5. provides a summary of types and numbers of radars, on a country-by-

country basis. The term "P+S" is used when the ATC is operating both a primary
radar (PSR) and a secondary radar (SSR).

Table 2.5. - Number of radar types by country and age

Country . Radar Number of radar station per age (years)

Total < 5 6*10 1U20 >20

Austria P+S 6 - 2 1 3
PSR 1 1
Belgium P+S 2 - 1 1
PSR 2 1 1
SSR 1 - - 1
MSSR 1 1
Denmark P+S 6 2 2 1 1
PSR 5 1 4
SSR 1 - - 1
MSSR 1 1
Finland PSR 2 - 1 1
SSR 7 - 4 3 -
MSSR 3 3 - - -

France P+S 10 - 1 4 5
MSSR > - - -

055app2.96 15

fi
 Country Radar Number of radar station per age (years)
Total < 5 6*10 lh20 >20
Germany P+S 21 6 2 13 -
PSR 1 - - -
SSR - - - 1
Greece PSR - - • - 1
SSR - - - 1
MSSR 1 - -
Ireland P+S - - 1 -
PSR 2 1 - - 1
MSSR 2 2 - - -
Italy P+S 9 6 2 - 1
PSR 9 2 1 1 5
SSR 9 2 1 1 5
Netherlands P+S 2 - - - 2
SSR 1 1 - - -

Norway PSR 5 - 1 2 2
SSR 6 - 1 2 3
Portugal P+S 1 - 1 - -

PSR 1 - - - 1
SSR 2 - 2 - -
Spain PSR 10 1 1 2 6
SSR 14 1 6 1 6
MSSR 3 3 - • - -
Sweden P+S 8 - 1 6 1
PSR 5 5
SSR 1 1 - -
MSSR 2 2
United Kingdom P+S 10 - 8 2
PSR 3 1 2
SSR 6 1 5
MSSR 3 1 1 1

Source: EUROCONTROL

055app2.96 16

??
 Radar stations are connected by dedicated telephone to Radar Data Processing
Systems (RDPSs) in Air Traffic Control Centres. RDPSs convert radar data to
appear on controllers' screens, tracking each aircraft's current, previous and
predicted position, altimde, course and speed. A mono-radar tracker processes plots
from a single radar, whereas a more accurate and reliable multi-radar tracker
simultaneously processes plots from several stations. RDPSs can warn controllers of
potential hazards when an aircraft's altimde or proximity to other aircraft seem likely
to breach separation minima. Hazard detection extrapolates the aircraft's trajectory
based on track information, but at present this is limited to Short Term Conflict
Avoidance systems (STCAs).

Research is taking place into possible improvements of radar data exchange using
computer networking. With such a network, each ATC centre would no longer-De-
restricted to processing information from a limited number of radar stations since it
would then be possible to exchange track information between centres. This would
answer the need for identical radar information and identical radar separations, and
eliminate problems at border areas.

There are three main functional deficiencies in Europe's radar network:

- Radar coverage. The introduction of duplicated SSR coverage - an objective of the

EATCHIP programme - in the South-East of Europe is proceeding far too slowly.
On the other hand, in the central area of Europe there are more radars operating
than are strictly needed (see table 2.6.), as they have been sited principally to
serve national requirements. Two possible results are technical problems due to
the high number of radar transmissions in the area; and unnecessary increases in
the costs of providing ATC services.

- The disparity of radar separation requirements. Different crteria for radar

information and aircraft separation result in the need for "stopgap" measures when
aircraft are handed on from one centre to another. It also means that the capacity
of a route is dictated by the centre along the route which applies the greatest
separation standards.

- The different technical characteristics of systems. These can put severe difficulties
in the way of achieving interoperability. But even when systems are compatible,
international sharing of information does not take place as much as it should -
hence the over-provision of radar coverage in the core area.

055app2.96 17

7*
 Table 2.6. - Evolution of radar coverage in ECAC area

mo 1991 1992 1993

Radar Coverage (entire ECAC area)
No coverage 66.81% 66.04%, 63.14% 60.29%
Single coverage 10.11% 9.50% 11.16% 11.59%
Multiple coverage 23.71% 24.47% 25.70% 28.12%
Radar Coverage (continental ECAC
area)
No coverage 36.70% 36.32% 30.68% 25.55%
Single coverage 17.89% 16.72% 19.97% 21.01%
Multiple coverage 45.41% 46.95% 49.35% 53.44%

source: EUROCONTROL

2.6. Human resources

This section looks at staff engaged in Air Traffic Services, and controllers in
particular, on a country-by-country basis in terms of their numbers and different
conditions of work.

At the request of the Commission, the International Federation of Air Traffic

Controllers Associations (IFACTA) has carried out a survey of trends in manpower
numbers, by different functions. Although there are many gaps in the data, the
information gathered points to the following conclusions:

- over the last seven years some countries (for example, Belgium, the Netherlands,
Sweden and the UK) have seen an increase in the number of controllers. The
average yearly rate of this increase ranges from 4 to 7 percent;

- for other countries (for example, Denmark, Ireland and Italy) the number of
controllers has remained stable over the period (and in one case - Finland - it has
slightly decreased).

An assessment of manpower requirements was made in 1993, as part of the

EATCHIP programme, which concluded that there was a shortage of air traffic
controllers which would last until at least 1997; and that this would have an impact

055app2.96 18

J?
 on traffic capacity. Another conclusion was that in some countries the deployment
of controllers was less than fully effective, due largely to low motivation of staff and
poor management practices.

The figures in the table appear to confirm the shortage of trained staff in certain
areas. This shortage may be due in part to disparities in selecting and training staff,
which requires considerable resources of time and money. Efforts are under way to
harmonise aspects of human resources in this field by establishing common
procedures for selection, training and licensing.

Differences in social and cultural attitudes are reflected in different working

conditions, as shown in table 2.8. There are marked differences in standard working
times, which could explain disparities both in productivity and in salaries. —

055app2.96 19

<p
 Table 2.7. - Number of air traffic controllers available

Country Function 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995

Belgium Tower/Approach 109 115 126 135 144 138

En-route 80 81 89 86 87 94

TOTAL 152 189 196 215 221 231 232

Denmark Tower/Approach 106 108 105

En-route 92 96 95

TOTAL 198 204 200

Maastricht Tower/Approach

En-route 152 145 155 171

TOTAL 152 145 155 171

Finland Tower/Approach 168 164 170

En-route 69 70 60

TOTAL 213 220 227 236 237 234 230

Germany Tower/Approach

En-route -
TOTAL 1180 1225 1334

Ireland Tower/Approach 60 60 65 65 65

En-route 105 105 110 110 110

TOTAL 166 165 165 175 175 175

Italy Tower/Approach 501 515

En-route 668 685

TOTAL 1169 1200 1200

Netherlands Tower/Approach 67 69 71 77 80 78 77

En-route 58 67 71 70 71 77 76

TOTAL 125 136 142 147 151 155 153

Spain Tower/Approach 370

En-route 452

TOTAL 800 727 822

Sweden Tower/Approach 330 325 340 345 345

En-route 245 230 245 260 280

TOTAL 575 555 585 605 625

United Kingdom Tower/Approach 650

En-route 1150

TOTAL 1500 1600 1800 1900 1900 2000

source: IFATCA

055app2.96 20

<*'
 <s

max continuous working minimum max number of official

i working days per working maximum total duration of consecutive allowed
length of a time without a break / breaks (hours) time-off
hours per breaks day-shift between 2 days of work hours of
incl. shift (hr«) without a day- sleep during
week month year week day / night (hra) day shifts
radar non-radar night (hra) off night

AUSTRIA

BELGIUM 9 / 1 0 .30

CHANNBL ISLANDS

DENMARK 5 20 210 36 yes 7.20/10,20 1.30 1.30 2 3 8 10 no

BUROC0NTR0L 5 20 200 38.5 yes 8.45/10.30 4 1.30 min 4 10 4 yes

FINLAND 5 22 ' 22B 35 yes 7.30/12.30 1 - 3 1 - 7.5 1 2 9 6 no

FRANCE 3.5 14 140 32 yes 11/12 2.5 5 7 7 12 3 yes

I o'.
GERMANY

GREBCB

IRELAND
4 - S

6
2 0 - 22 205 38.5

41
yes

yea
10/10

8/11 2
6

3
2.30

1
2.00

1.45
10

9
6

6
yes

ITALY 5 35 yes 7 /ll 2 1.30 4 7 3 - 4

a LUXEMBOURG
2

1/5 THE NETHERLANDS 8 / 6 2.20 5.20 1.20 10 yes

8 PORTUGAL

SPAIN 3.5 14 140 32 yes 8/10 2.30 8 2.10 s 3 yes

SWEDEN 5 21 200 38 no 14 / 14 2 4 1 8 10

i- U K 4.5 19 230 35 yes 10/10 2 4 2 12 6

od,

'•••§••
 2.7. The costs of services provided

The economic appraisal of the cost of facilities and staff engaged for the provision
of ATS is based on the yearly expenditure of national administrations, which is
reported to EUROCONTROL annually by the countries participating in the Central
Route Charges Office (CRCO). Member states of CRCO operate a common charging
system, in which the costs for actual services provided, added to EUROCONTROL's
central costs, are used to establish a cost-base from which the national unit rates of
charge can be calculated.

The cost-base is worked out in accordance with generally accepted accounting

principles for investment expenditure and operating costs. Investment expenditure,
on equipment and buildings, is taken into account by amortising its cost on the basis—
of its expected operating life. The two components of this cost are depreciation (the
amount of capital acmally in service); and interest (which is related to the net value,
in terms of cost - depreciation, of the capital invested). Operating costs are those
for Air Traffic Services, communications, meteorological services and Aeronautical
Information Services, each classified in terms of maintenance, operations, training,
research and administration.

The capital and operating costs for EUROCONTROL Headquarters.- including the
Central Flow Management Unit, the Experimental Centre and the Institute of Air
Navigation Services - are added to Member States' own national costs pro rata with
Member States' contributions to the EUROCONTROL budget. EUROCONTROL's
capital and operating costs for the Maastricht Centre are added to national costs pro
rata with the use of the airspace of the participating countries for which route
services are provided. Table 2.9., and figure 2.2., illustrate the changes in en-route
services costs in both actual and deflated terms (at 1986 prices).

The overall cost of Air Traffic Services in 1993 amounted to 2.147 billion ecus..

In order to express the series of costs at constant prices (1986), the consumer price
index EUR12* has been used. Data given, on the deflated cost of air traffic services
in EURO/88, show a slight increase till 1989 (3.4 percent on average) and a
sustained increase from 1989 onwards (10 percent on average). In the period under
analysis (1986-1993), the contribution of EUROCONTROL cost to overall cost has
increased from 7 percent to 11 percent.

The EUR 12 index is a weighted average of the national price indeces of the Members of the European
Union.

055app2.96 22

7jS
 Table 2.9. - En-route ATS cost in EURO/88* (million of ECU)

1986 1987 198$ 198? 1990. 1991 1992 1993

Actual costs

National 916 963 1034 1130 1357 1574 1772 1927

+5 % +8 % + 10 % + 19 % + 16 % + 13 % + 11%
EUROCONTROL 73 79 87 101 105 126 154 220
+8 % + 10 % + 16 % +4 % +21 % +22 % +42%
Total 989 1043 1121 1231 1462 1701 1927 2147~~
+5 % +7 % +9% +20 % + 16 % + 13 % +9 %
Costs in 1986

National 936 969 1005 1148 1269 1365 1442

+2 % +4 % +4 % + 13 % + 11 % +8 % +8 %
EUROCONTROL 77 81 90 88 102 119 164
+5 % +6 % + 10 % -1 % + 15 % + 17 % +38%
Total 1013 1050 1094 1236 1371 4484 1606
+2 % | +3 % + 4 % j + 14 % + 11 % +8 % +6%

source: CRCO

Figure 2.2. - En-route ATS cost in EURO/88

3
O
LU
'Actual Eurocontrol
tuai National
Deflated Eurocontrol
Deflated National

1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993

EURO/88 is formed by Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Austria,
Spain and Portugal.

055app2.96 23

&
 Member States' costs are divided into:

- Staff costs,

- Other operating costs (maintenance, consumables, power etc),

- Depreciation,

- Interest.

Costs between 1991 and 1994, using this breakdown, are shown in table 2.10. -
based on 11 European countries (the "EURO/88" group, with Switzerland excepted
and Greece included).

Overall, the main component is staff costs, which account for over half. But the
relative importance of each cost component to the total national cost differs from
country to country. This is explained by the following:

- staff costs account, on average, for 56% of total costs, but with a standard
deviation of 9%;

- other operating costs account for 21% on average, with a standard deviation of

12%;

- depreciation accounts for 13 %, with a standard deviation of 5 % ;

- interest accounts for 10%, with a standard deviation of 6%; and

other costs count for 0%, but with a standard deviation of 2%.

055app2.96 24

K
 Table 2.10. - Changes in national ATC costs 1991-1994 (11 countries)

Costs 1991 1992 1993 1994

Actual costs
(million ECU)
Staff 765 49 % 864 ! 49 % 999 ; 52 % 1118 j 52 %
+ 13 % j + 16 % ; + 12 % | j
Operating costs 423 27 % 485 ; 28 % 471 ; 25 % 499 1 23 %
+ 15 % | -3 % ; +6 % ;
Depreciation 183 12 % 213 ! 12 % 255 1 13 % 308 | 14 %
+ 17 % I +20 % | +20 % | • • —
Interest 153 10 % 159 | 9 % 161 | 8 % 187 | 9 %
+4 % j +1% j + 16 % |
Other 34 2% 32 . \ 2% 32 ! 2 % 35 \ 2%
-4 % j -2% r + 12 % j
TOTAL 1557 1754 j 1918 j 2147 |
+ 13 % \ +9 % j + 12 % ;

Costs in 1991
j
(million of ECU)
1
Staff 830 \ 929 | 1012 |
+8 % \ + 12 % j +9 % j
Operating costs 465 ! 434 | 453 |
+ 10 % j -7% [ +4 % |
Depreciation 205 ! ' • 237 | , 279 |
+ 12 % j + 16 % j + 18 % |
Interest 151 - I 146 ! 165 |
-1 % ! -3 % | + 13 % \
Other 32 1 30 | 33 |
-7 % j -4 % j + 10 % ;
TOTAL 1679 | 1767 | 1937 j
+8 % ! +5 % J + 10 % I

source: CRCO

055app2.96 25
 3. THE DEMAND FOR EUROPEAN AIR TRAFFIC SERVICES

3.1 The developing roles of ATS users

There are three main users of Air Traffic Services:

- Commercial Air Transport,

- Military Aviation,

- General Aviation.

Commercial Air Transport includes all scheduled and charter airlines. General^
Aviation includes:

- commercial (Air Taxis, private charters, corporate aircraft etc); and

- leisure (private light aircraft, gliders, balloons etc).

The relative roles of these categories in 1994, when 4.7 million flights took place in
the "EURO/88 area", is shown by the fact that 97 percent of flights were civil
operations (of which 92% were commercial) while military flights accounted for only
3 percent.

The main source of data on the en-route operational workload of air traffic control
is EUROCONTROL's Central Route Charges Office (CRCO). From an analysis of
en-route communications one can ascertain the number of flights operating under
instrument flying rules (IFR) handled at en-route control centres (flights operating
under visual rules - VFR - are excluded). The data enables a comprehensive analysis
to be made of the demand for airspace use. For consistency, data coverage is limited
to the eleven countries who participated in the Route Charges System before 1988
(since then, a further six countries have joined the System; and the former East
Germany has been incorporated into the FRG)\ Global traffic figures are shown in
table 3.1.. The number of IFR flights controlled in the "EURO/88" area came to
4.72 million in 1994 and represented a total of 2.923 million kilometers flown.
Although the number of flights had grown more slowly in 1991 and 1993, flights
became steadily longer - the average distance per flight rose from 582 km in 1988
to 618 km in 1994.

EURO/88 is formed by Belgium; Luxemburg, Germany, France, United kingdom,, Netherlands,

Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Portugal.

055app2.96 26

if
 Table 3.1. - Trend of air traffic control workload in the "EURO/88 group of
countries

1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994

Total number of 3605491 3876962 4098461 4180127 4459574 4521977 4723188

flights
Increase over - +7.53% +5.71% + 1.99% +6.69% + 1.40% +4.45%
previous year
Total kilometers 2099 2249 2394 2490 2677 2776 2923
flown (million)
- +7.15% +6.45% +4.01% +7.51% +3.70% +5.30%
Average 582 580 584 596 600 614 619
kilometers per
flight

source: CRCO

3.2. Distribution and patterns of demand

The CRCO data also show the pattern of air traffic in Europe. In table 3.2. flights
are categorised as follows:

- "Domestic": flights wholly within one of the "EURO/88" countries.

- "Internal": international flights operated from one of the "EURO/88" countries to

another.

- "External": international flights between the "EURO/88" group of countries and

other countries.

- Overflights.

Figure 3.1. shows the growth in air traffic control activity during the past ten years,
based on 1985, by category of traffic.

Table 3.2. - Number of IFR flights handled in EURO/88 in past decade

TYPE OF TRAFFIC 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994
Domestic 1203091 1264356 1342253 1455717 1565133 1632485 1680313 1733481 1688161 1730783
Internal (international ) 814861 897937 980962 1070381 1155993 1205757 1239891 1317597 1324891 1414082
External (international) 837105 862166 936642 1026868 1102948 1207155 1204377 1343369 1433675 1504586
Overflights 51994 47496 50253 52525 52888 53064 55546 65127 75250 73737
TOTAL 2907051 3071955 3310110 3605491 3876962 4098461 4180127 4459574 4521977 4723188

source: EUROCONTROL/Division DED.4-STATFOR

055app2.96 27

ii
 Figure 3.1. - Growth of IFR flights handled in EURO/88

~°— Domestic
"D~ Internal
• * - External
~*~ Overflights

1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994

Despite the economic effects of two major global events (the Gulf War of 1990, and
the economic recession of 1991-93), since 1985 there has been strong growth in
international traffic, with yearly average increases of 6.3 percent in "internal" traffic
and 6.7 percent in "external" traffic. By contrast, "domestic" traffic grew more
slowly, especially in the early 1990s, with an average annual increase over the ten
year period of only 4.1 percent. As a result, the share of international traffic
("internal" plus "external") increased from 56.8%in 1985 to 61.8%in 1994.
(Similarly, the sharp increase in the number of overflights after 1991 was mainly due
to the growth of international flights from and to European countries outside the
"EURO/88" area.) For air traffic control, this has meant that international traffic has
accounted for an ever increasing proportion of sector-to-sector transfer, throwing into
sharper relief the shortcomings of European ATS as a grouping of disparate national
systems.

Table 3.3., and figure 3.2., look at the pattern of IFR flights in 1994. For each
country, these are shown in terms of total flights; flights operated within national
boundaries (domestic); international flights; and overflights. Under the symbols RT,
RD, R, and R<j are shown the respective ranking of each country in terms of traffic
volume for each category. For domestic flights, activity is clearly correlated to the
size of the country; with international flights, there is a clear concentration in the
core-area (the UK, Germany and France); and most overflights take place along the
north-south corridor (Belgium-Germany-France-Switzerland-Austria).

055app2.96 28

ff
 Table 3.3. - Annual number of IFR flights in 1994

Country total RT Domestic Ro International */ Overflights Ro

Belgium/Luxemb. 653908 6 6233 13 278905 7 368770 4
Germany 1830726 2 424164 2 945513 2 461049 2
France 1877914 1 462206 1 664297 3 751411 1
United Kingdom 1536042 3 416842 3 954148 1 165052 9
Netherlands 550171 8 19935 11 319431 6 210805 JL
Ireland 321235 11 15199 12 124364 11 181672 8
Spain 991335 4 260124 4 502463 4 228748 6
Portugal 303611 12 32317 9 106923 12 164371 10
Switzerland 774818 5 32661 8 330333 5 411824 3
Austria 570776 7 27120 10 183579 9 360077 5
Greece 326285 10 59801 7 164364 10 102120 12
Sweden 515452 9 210253 5 189141 8 116058 11
Finland 154573 13 73142 6 70890 13 10541 13

source: EUROCONTROL/Division DED.4-STATFOR

Figure 3.2. - Annual Number of IFR Flights in 1994

2000000
1800000 +-
1600000 -
Ç 1400000 -
V) 1200000 f • Overflights
1000000 •international
800000
• Domestic
600000
c> 400000
200000
0
Fra Ger UK Sp Swit Be! Aus Neth Swe Gr Ire Port Fin

The monthly distribution shows how traffic decreases during the winter and increases
in summer: this is more marked for international flights. From 1991, July has been
the busiest month of the year.

055app2.96 29

?o
 Figure 3.3. - Monthly distribution of IFR flights in 1994

160000
140000 -
£120000
êl00000
£ 80000 • Domestic
o 60000 • Internal
^ 40000 B External
20000 El Overflights
o-^
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

4. THE LEVEL, AND QUALITY, OF ATS SERVICES

4.1. Indicators of service quality

There are three main criteria by which the success of a European ATM system can
be judged:

- the level of safety achieved;

- the quality of service performed; and

- the value for money represented by the,services delivered.

The system is assessed against these criteria using performance indicators:

- the number of airmisses (as an indicator of safety levels);

- delay monitoring (as an indicator of service quality);

- the levels of en-route charges; and productivity factors (as indicators of value for
money).

4.2. Level of safety

Over the last 15 years, the number of airmisses recorded by IATA in the European
region has remained relatively stable (with the exception of 1989 and 1990 - see
figure 4.1). At the same time, traffic increased tremendously, which has meant a
steady reduction in the rate of airmisses as a proportion of the number of flights
handled by the ATC system.

055app2.96 30

V
 It has to be noted that this continuous improvement was achieved at the same time
that the introduction of new technologies allowed a gradual reduction in separation
between aircraft. Neither was it adversly affected by airspace congestion and
consequent delays : on the contrary, these delays were often introduced to maintain

Figure - Total airmisses for EUR region (source IATA)

400

the safety level of the system at the expense of its punctuality.

However, the growth of air transport continually keeps up the pressure on an already
overcrowded system and new methods of assessing safety against capacity will have
to be developed if the improvement in airmisses is to be maintained.

4.3. Factors influencing airspace capacity

"Airspace capacity" means the maximum number of aircraft that can be handled
simultaneously by a typical sector while maintaining an acceptable safety level.
Capacity will therefore depend on:

- the minimum separation between aircraft, and hence the maximum potential
number of aircraft movements at any one time; and

- the size of the sector, in terms of the volume of airspace controlled.

Capacity can be improved by increasing the number of flights handled in the sector;
by decreasing their separation; and by reducing the size of the sector's airspace while
maintaining the number of flights controlled.

The degree of separation between aircraft depends on several factors. The principal
one is the criteria applied for radar separation, which will depend on the accuracy
of the radar system and the display representation. Standards for all radar sub-
systems are set by criteria for the performance of the radar sensor, and the central
data processing equipment. Other factors may affect the use of a particular radar

055app2.96 31

n
 system, and hence the separation minima:

- Communications. It is essential to have proper means of communication, with

proper coverage and performance, which always allow immediate contact with
aircraft.

- Meteorology. Adverse weather conditions can mean that wider separation

distances has to be allowed between aircraft.

- Airspace Management and Procedures. This means having a type of airspace

structure and network which has the maxinum flexibility to adapt to different
radar separation requirements.

- The human element. This includes pilots, who must be able to monitor and
respond promptly to controllers' instructions, as well as the controlllers
themselves. The extent of controllers' expertise, experience and stamina are
critical factors when establishing the maximum workload they can cope with.

To an extent it is possible to increase capacity and solve the problems linked to

workload by decreasing the size of the sector - the area of responsibility of the
individual controller. Increasing the number of sectors in this way could, however,
give rise to new problems by increasing the amount of coordination needed.

The benefits of closer radar separation within a particular sector can be lost if
separation distances have to be increased significantly as aircraft approach the sector
boundaries to be transferred to the next en-route sector. Indeed, the disparity in radar
separation standards on international routes is one of the single most inhibiting factor
in determining capacity in Europe. Before a single minimum radar separation
standard could be applied across the European area, however, controllers would need
to be able to have a clear picture of the traffic in neighbouring sectors as well as
their own. This would require overlapping radar and R/T coverage; standard display
screen characteristics, when two adjacent aircraft are under control of different
centres; compatible airspace structures on both sides of the sector boundary; and an
understanding of the procedures and equipment in neighbouring sectors.

The main failing of the present system, in terms of meeting demand, is lack of
capacity. This stems principally from the relatively low degree of interoperability of
equipment and the inefficient deployment of controllers. Scarce capacity means
delays, and less flexibility in the use of airspace. Delays are often regarded as a
useful indicator of system capacity : when and where they are reported, shortage of
ATC capacity could be their cause. However, measuring capacity levels in this way
first requires a proper analysis of the different possible causes of delay. In May 1995
EC A C s INSTAR Study Group concluded that there were three main causes of
capacity bottlenecks and consequent delay. Lack of technical infrastructure, especially
the quality and quantity of radar coverage, accounts for about 10 percent of total
ATM delays, while staff shortages in ATC centres account for about another 10
percent. The study concluded, however, that by far the biggest cause - accounting
for some 80% of delays - was the effective limit on a controller's workload,
especially in the core area, in terms of the maximum number of flights that he can
safely handle at any one time. This limit will vary from sector to sector, and may
indeed depend in large part on the individual controller. This factor is also a result

055app2.96 32

11
 of a system not offering the controller optimal working conditions. Therefore, the
many factors involved (poor airspace design, deficiencies in technical equipment,
controller workload) need to be studied in depth before conclusions can be drawn
about improving efficiency in this area.

4.4. Assessing the causes of ATC delays

Delays affect both aircraft operators, because increased flight times directly affect
airlines' costs; and passengers, in terms of inconvenience and reduced reliability of
flying compared to other means of travel. Delays also mean that airspace capacity
is not used effectively, since the effect is to spread the same flow of flights over a
longer period; and the resulting increase in ATC operators' costs per kilometer flawn-
is directly reflected in user charges.

Although EUROCONTROL, IATA and AEA monotor delays across Europe, current
tools for measuring delays are still being developed. Delays resulting from ATC
activity cannot always be directly identified, or their causes.and impact assessed
properly. There are significant limitations, therefore, in our understanding of the
influence of capacity capacity shortages. Indeed, system elements are so
interdependent that a some quite unrelated factor - such as weather, or an accident
which blocks a key feeder road to an airport - may upset flight schedules in the first
place; but a fundamental shortage of ATC capacity may exacerbate the disruption.
More research is needed on these interactions.

There are three main sets of statistics on delays. Two have been developed by
airlines organisations (IATA and AEA) and the third consists of data from national
Flow Management Units (FMU) which has been continued, more recently, by
EUROCONTROL's Central Flow Management Unit (CFMU). Table 4.2.
summarises the main techniques used in assembling each one. All three surveys take
into account departure delays.

The LATA survey collects data regularly from a sample of carriers - international
flights by 16 European and American carriers - and analyses them on a monthly
basis. While the IATA survey is necessarily limited in scope, it is useful in that it:

- samples the delays incurred by major international carriers for all their
international scheduled flights - a particularly important sector of the market;

- shows historic trends for different causes of delay; and whether they are related
directly to ATC operations, or more indirectly through flow restrictions, industrial
action etc;

055app2.96 33

<H
 Figure 4.3. - Average delay per delayed flight on a monthly basis

35,00

1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995

0,00
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Table 4.2. - General criteria of present statistics on delays

Source Start year Collection Calculation Type of : - Sample

method method x delay
(na of carriers/
yearly fights).
IATA 1989 Report of Difference between actual ATC & ATC 16
airlines off-blocks time and related causes 1.4 million
scheduled time of departure
( > 5 minutes)
AEA 1986 Report of Difference between actual Airport & 25
airlines off-blocks time and ATC caused 1.4 million
scheduled time of departure
(>15 minutes)
CFMU 1985 Report of Difference between last Flow all carriers
FMUs requested slot time and last management 4.7 million
allocated slot time restrictions
( > 5 minutes)

- attempts to draw conclusions about the extent to which delays are attributable to
weaknesses in the ATS structure, in terms of capacity shortages resulting from a
lack of technical or human resources.

Table 4.3. shows the main results of the IATA survey over the last five years.

055app2.96 34

f
 Table 4.3. - Yearly results of IATA-ATC delay survey (year: from July to June)

90/91 91/92 92/93 93/94 94/95

Total number of flights 1,034,760 1,173,018 1,291,311 1,464,663 1,475,762
+ 13,4% + 10.1% + 13.4% +0.8%
Number of flights delayed 185,719 196,751 173,153 133,502 144,373
+5.9% -12.0% -22.9% +8.1%
Percentage of flights delayed 17.95% 16.77% 13.41% 9.1% 9.8%
Delay in minutes 4,231,040 4,276,069 3,109,602 2,191,292 2,612,437
+ 1.1% -27.3% -29.5% + 19.2%
Average delay per delayed 22.78 21.73 17.96 16.4 18.1
flight

source: IATA

Although the sample has changed over the period, the figures show the trend: after

Figure 4.2. - Montly percentage of flights delayed

25.00%

20,00% HfifT -

•O—1990
Z 15,00% •D—1991
o
<D
D>
CO -A-1992
§ 10,00% -*-1993
-*—1994
5,00% -0-1995

0,00% -i : u

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

steady improvements up to 1993/94, the situation deteriorated last year. Figures 4.2.
and 4.3. contain the same information on a monthly basis, showing how delays tend
to peak over the summer.

The FMUs delay survey was started in 1985 on a small scale, and was expanded in
1991 when the CFMU took over responsability for it. The object of this exercise was
to survey all flights planned to operate on restricted routes, flying from areas for
which the FMUs had flow management responsibility to other European destinations.
All flights were included whenever they were affected by traffic flow restrictions,
even if they experienced no delay. Delays were calculated in terms of the time
between the initial slot allocation and actual take-off (times of less than 10 minutes
were disregarded).

055app2.96 35

#
 The departure and destination areas in the sample were initially selected in order to
concentrate on looking at the North-South flow (from the UK, France, Benelux and
FRG to Italy, France, Spain and Greece). They were later extended, however, to
include other areas where traffic growth threatened a need for restrictions (such as
Gatwick airport, and the Netherlands); and the inconsistencies resulting from this and
other changes preclude the production of exhaustive historical statistics.

Table 4.4. - Monthly results of FMUs delay survey from 1986 to 1989
Ç ,

YEAR MONTH WEEK Traffic flow Reported Reported % delayed Average

flights delay flights delay
1986 June 23-29 16391 2773 16745 16.92% 6.04
July 21-27 16148 3029 13371 18.76% 4.41
August 25-31 16323 2654 14683 16.26% 5.53
Total 48862 8456 44799 17.31% 5.30
1987 June 22-28 17763 4267 60748 24.02% 14.24
July 20-26 17395 2986 26788 17.17% 8.97
August 24-30 17810 3176 19083 17.83% 6.01
Total 52968 10429 106619 19.69% 10.22
1988 June 20-26 19445 8986 125744 46.21% 13.99
" July 18-24 18582 9579 125224 51.55% 13.07
August 22-28 19108 9946 106336 52.05% 10.69
Total 57135 28511 357304 „ 49.90% 12.53
1989 June 26-02 21969 12318 237094 56.07% 19.25
July ~ "24:30""" 21147 12391 211292 58.59% Ï7.05"""
August 28-03 21780 11065 137793 50.80% 12.45
Total 64896 35774 586179 55.13% 16.39

source: EUROCONTROL

Nevertheless, table 4.4. has been drawn up to compare, year by year, delays in three
separate weeks over June, July and August, even though the sample coverage has
changed over the period.

Bearing these limitations in mind, the table shows how delays rose dramatically in
1988 from a stable level in 1986 and 1987, both in terms of the number of delayed
flights and length of the average delay.

From 1992, with the inauguration of EUROCONTROL's CFMU, a coordinated

approach has meant that data could be collected on a daily basis and analysed
monthly. At the same time, the survey was extended to cover the entire European
region, recording:

055app2.96 36

<??
 - the estimated total number of flights per month that passed through the area of an
FMU's responsibility (from data supplied by CRCO);

- the number of slots requested for flights subject to flow control measures which
were obliged to request slots;

- the delay between a requested slot time and the actual take-off time if this was
longer than five minutes.

Table 4.5. shows the results, year by year. Last year saw about 160,000 hours of
delays - the percentage of flights delayed increased to 8.9%; and the average delay
went up to 23 minutes. This setback is confirmed when the information is analysed

Figure 4.4. - Monthly percentage of flighs delayed (CFMU)

25,00%

•1992
•1993
1994
•1995

0,00%
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Figure 4.5. - Average delay per delayed flight (CFMU)

» 25,00 -B
•1992
- | 20,00 •1993
•1994
'1995
° 10,00

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

on a monthly basis (figures 4.4. and 4.5.).

055app2.96 37

S-
 Table 4.5. - Yearly results of CFMU delay survey (year: from July to June)

92m 93/94 94/95

Total number of flights 3,698,061 4,443,245 4,663,969
+5.0%
Number of flights delayed 408,994 357,652 415,108
+ 16.1%
Percentage of flights delayed 11.1% 8.1% 8.9%
Delay in minutes 9,464,541 8,046,979 9,558,647
+ 18.8%
Average delay per delayed- 23.1 22.5 23.0
flight

(year 1992 from August)

source: EUROCONTROL

A recent review by the CFMU looked at the 30 busiest sectors in Europe in 1994.
Leaving aside delays of less than 15 minutes, it still attributed between 100,000 and
170,000 hours of departure delay to ATC causes. Three main causes are set out in
table 4.6. below.

Table 4.6. - Estimation of delay and related causes in 1994

Causes . ' Yearly Delay Improvement measures

Proportion Hours
Airport and ATM constraints 100% j 200,000
ATM constraints 50-80%! 100% 100,000 to 170,000
- Inefficient rostering j 10% 10,000 to 17,000 Recruit controllers
Improve rostering
- Lack of technical infrastructure j 8% 8,000 to 14,000 Complete radar coverage
- Maxima placed on controller ; 82% 82,000 to 140,000 Revise airspace structure/network
workload in elementary sectors Implement joint use of airspace
Improve flow management
Improve controller tools

Source: Ecac Instar Study Group - May 1995

055app2.96 38

tf
 4.5. En-route charges

Route charges are levied for the use of en-route air navigation facilities and services.
Within the EU all Member States except Italy, Finland and Sweden operate a
common charging system for en-route air navigation services in the airspace for
which they are responsible. This common system is operated by the Central Route
Charges Office (CRCO) of EUROCONTROL on behalf of the Contracting States.

The route charges recover the costs incurred by Air Traffic Control organisations for
en-route air navigation services (see paragraph 2.7.). The overall charge exacted-by
a Contracting State equates to the sum of individual charges for flights which have
entered the airspace of that State. The individual charge for a flight is calculated by
multiplying the national unit rate of charge by the number of "service nuits" of that
flight. For each country, the national unit rate of charge is fixed each year by
dividing the national en-route facility cost-base by the total number of "service units"
in that country's airspace in that year. The calculation of "service units" is a function
of the distance flown by an aircraft, expressed in terms of one hundredths of the
great circle distance between the point of entry into the country's airspace and the
point of exit from it, multiplied by the weight factor of the aircraft expressed as the
square root of its maximum certificated take-off weight. The points of entry into and
exit from that airspace are assumed to be along the most commonly used routes
between the airports of departure and arrival. "Unit rates of charge" for a year are
fixed at the end of the previous year, on the basis of actual costs. There is a
mechanism which allows any consequent disparities to be adjusted subsequently.

Finally, these values must refer only to chargeable flights. (Some flights are usually
exempted - such as those by aircraft under 2 tons, State aircraft, search and rescue
flights, military flights, training flights, and Navaid check flights.)

Table 4.7. and figure 4.6. show how the unit rate of charge has changed between
1985 and 1995 for the 11 European countries in the "EURO/88" area, in terms of:

- the average unit rates calculated by dividing the sum of the forecast costs
chargeable to users by the sum of the forecast chargeable service units ; and
expressed in current and constant terms (1985) ;

- the sum of costs, and of number, of chargeable service units forecast to determine
previous unit rates.

055app2.96 39
 Table 4.7. - Average unit rate in the "EURO/88" area.

1985 1986 1987 198& 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995

Unit Rate 41.92 37.58 42.49 41.12 43.92 47.29 55.91 61.16 62.36 63.83 63.38
(ECU)
- -10.35% + 13.06% -3.22% + 6.81% +7.66% + 18.24% +9.39% + 1.96% +2.36% -0.71%
Deflated Unit Rate 41.92 36.14 39.71 37.04 37.54 38.47 43.31 45.44 44.83 44.51 -
(ECU in 1985)
- -13.80% + 9.89% -6.71% + 1.33% +2.50% + 12.56% • +4.92% -1.34% -0.71% -
Costs forecasted 785.63 738.83, 892.08 964.50 1139.04 1288.05 1685.24 1911.10 2166.10 2247.52 2406.79
(million of ECU)
- -5.%% +20.74% + 8.12% + 18.10% + 13.08% +30.84% + 13.40% + 13.34% +3.76% +7.09%
Chargeable Service 18.74 19.66 20.99 23.46 25.93 27.24 30.14 31.25 34.74 35.21 37.97
Units forecasted
(millions) - +4.9% + 6.8% + 11,7% + 10.6% + 5.0% + 10.6% +3.7% + 11.2% + 1.4% +7.8%

Source: CRCO

Figure 4.6. - Evolution of average unit rate in EURO/88

E> Unit Rate

• Deflated Unit Rate

1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995

Real unit rates wavered up and down between 1985 and 1990, and then rose sharply
(the average growth in 1991 and 1992 was 8.7%). Since 1992 real unit rates have
been slowly falling. Looking at the influence of the different factors that
determine unit rates (the cost-base and forecast service units), the trend is explained
as follows:

- until 1990 the increased value of service units (yearly average, 7.5%) was
accompanied by a - lower - increase in the cost-base (yearly average, 5.9%);

- after 1990 there was a stronger increase in the cost-base (yearly average, 10.6%)
which was not matched in 1991 and 1992 by a corresponding increase in the value
of service units;

- most recently (since 1993), this trend has reversed due to a sustained increase in
traffic.

055app2.96 40

A^l
 Further considerations can be drawn when the basis of the values of costs, service
units and unit rates are expressed in actual terms.

Table 4.8. shows:

- the number of actual total service units in the "EURO/88" area;

- the number of chargeable service units in the area;

- the number of service units exempted;

- the actual unit rate (derived by dividing actual costs by actual service units,
representing the theorical charge that would have been imposed on airspace users
each year).

Table 4.8. - Actual Service Units generated in EURO/88 area

1985 1986 1987 1988. 1989 1990 : 1991 1992 1993- 1994

Actual Unit Rate na 48.54 46.74 46.08 47.45 53.72 57.83 58.84 62.64 na
(ECU)
Chargeable Service 19.22 20.37 22.31 24.33 25.95 27.22 29.41 32.74 34.27 36.28
Units generated
(millions) - +5.99% + 9.48% +9.06% +6.66% +4.89% + 8.07% + 11.32% +4.6% +5.9%

Exempted Service 1.83 1.88 1.96 2.01 2.15 3.00 2.06 1.10 1.11 1.01
Units generated
(millions) +2.80% +4.06% +2.43% +7.10% + 39.50% -31.21% -46.84% + 1.03% -8.5%

Total Service Units 21.08 22.27 24.30 26.39 28.10 30.22 31.48 33.84 35.38 37.29
generated
(millions) " +5.7% + 9.1% + 8.6% + 6\5%" " + 7 . 5 % * +4.2% +7.5% + 4 . 6 % " "+7.4%""

Over the past decade the number of total service units has increased at an annual rate
of 6.5 percent, reaching about 37.3 million in 1994. If these figures are compared
with the corresponding figures on kilometers flown, it is clear that the increase in
service units is principally due to the growth of air traffic generally, whether seen
in terms of kilometers flown or the number of flights ; while the influence of
aircraft weight has remained constant.

4.6. Efficiency issues

Air Traffic Control Services are operated at present as monopolies. Services are
provided and controlled by single organisations in each state. As a result, as with
many public services, the main motivation for the management of Air Traffic
Services has been technical efficiency. However, the need to provide services to an
ever-increasing international air traffic market has pointed up the fact that this
imperative, which derives from national considerations, does not necessarily match
the idea of a common European service functioning as if it were provided by a single
unified system.

055app2.96 41

Jû^
 Figure 4.7. -Average cost per km and per flight in EURO/88

0,6 400,00

0,55 350,00

ê 0.5 300,00 r
"Cost per km
"Cost per flight
0,45 250,00 -s;
o
o O

0,4 200,00
1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994

The issue of future investment in human and technological resources to achieve a

harmonisation and integration of the different national systems, and the consequent
effects for airspace users, inevitably raises the question of cost efficiency. What
integration has been achieved so far enables us now to compare the different national
systems in terms of the management and organisation of ATC centres. Such a
comparison could well suggest that there are opportunities to reduce costs further.

European Air Traffic Control Services have very varying unit costs. As we have
seen, the biggest differences are in staff and operating costs, which are reflected in
the different unit rates charged by various countries. To some extent, the causes of
these disparities are differences in quantity and quality of the manpower and
equipment required to handle air traffic. It is undeniable that the more complex
traffic handling becomes, so the more properly-trained staff and sophisticated
equipment are required. Other causes related to staff costs, and hence availability,
are the high differences in salaries, other remuneration and social security
contributions paid by different countries.

Looking back over the last ten years, productivity indicators of Air Traffic Services -
in terms of unit costs per kilometer flown, and per flight, in terms of ECUs at 1986
prices - show a positive trend until 1989 followed by a decline in productivity after
1991 at an average annual rate of 4.3% (see figure 4.7.). This suggests that between
1989 and 1993 there were no economies of scale: while total traffic volume increased
by an average of 5.4% per annum, the overall discounted cost increased even further,
by an average of 10% per annum. This trend is expected to continue next year.
Looking at national figures, for some countries this is likely to be even more
pronounced.

055app2.96 42

4&Ï
 These trends are not entirely explicable by technical or external effects (such as
differences in labour and systems costs), which suggests that there may well be scope
for further cost reductions. A recent study by INSTAR suggested that ATC efficiency
could be improved to the tune of 600 million ECU a year (in 1993 cost terms), in
the following ways:

- reducing the costs of support personnel (i.e. in engineering, technical,

administrative and managerial functions);

- reducing the level of "other" costs reported to the CRCO (such as meteorological
services, telecommunications etc); and ""

improving controller productivity.

If such a cost reduction had been achieved in 1993 it would have led to a
corresponding reduction in the average unit rate of charge in "EURO/88" countries
of some 30 percent. The study also suggests that possible improvements in cost
performance as a function of centre size should not be disregarded. Larger centres
do not seem to be necessarily more efficient then smaller ones: the study concludes
that the significant variance in costs between ATM organisations may well mean that
any economies of scale are currently masked by differences in cost efficiency
between different ATC centres.

055app2.96 43
 Appendix 3

BASIC INFRASTRUCTURE REQUIREMENTS

1. Introduction

This Appendix sets out the Community's priorities for investment in the fields of
Communications, Navigation, Surveillance and Automation of ATM functions.

When preparing the ATM component of the Trans-European Transport Network and trying
to make its mind on the priorities for Community action in this area, the Commission
realised the need for a more focussed view on the kind of projects which would .yield the best
results in term of improving capacity and safety.

Accordingly, it decided to launch a study, in co-operation with EUROCONTROL to ensure

consistency with the CIP, aimed at identifying by mean of a multicriteria analysis the most
promissing avenues for Community funding. This study, by analysing the Member States'
investment plans, has identified three broad guidelines for action within which short term
expenditure (up to 1997/98) can be coordinated with longer term spending (until 2000 or
2001). These guidelines are as follows :

- to improve the continuity and quality of surveillance in Europe,

- to improve the coverage and quality of the communication system,
- to improve the interoperability of ATC systems and the automation of operational
coordination.

These guidelines have been further refined and broken down into two kind of project
groups :

"short-term projects", to bring on stream equipment available today and/or to apply

common specifications already drawn up. This is a matter of supporting individual
countries in their work to modernise their infrastructure,

- "medium-term projects", based on specifications still being drawn up which have yet to
be validated by experimental equipment but which should become commercially available
in the next few years. Here, the Community's role is to support the operational validation
activities and the work being undertaken to prepare these new technologies for
deployment by the year 2000.

It has to be underlined that the terms "short-term projects" and "medium-term projects" are

CP/055app3\96 1

^*?>
used from a technical point of view to designate respectively short-term technologies
implementation and new technologies pre-operational validation. From an investement point
of view it is obvious that investment in "medium-term projects" should start very early in
order to prepare in good time for the deployment of those technologies by the year 2000.

In addition, steps must be taken to create a European component for the global navigation
satellite system which, in January 1994, the Community decided to make one of its
priorities.1

2. The basic infrastructure for Air Traffic Management

2.1. Communications

Improving communications between pilots and controllers and between the controllers
themselves will obviously improve capacity and safety by reducing the risks of
misunderstanding.

For short-term projects, the Community's objective should be to help improve the coverage
and quality of the existing analogue RT network. This means, in order of priority :

setting up new VHF receiving/transmitting stations, or upgrading existing ones;

improving the RT ground environment and installating equipment for frequency
management;
preparating for the changeover to 8.33 kHz channel spacing.

For medium term projects, preparatory work should be put in hand towards setting up the
Aeronautical Telecommunication Network (ATN). Examples of projects under this heading
might be : '

pre-operational development of the ATN Europe, preparing the ground segment of the
network;

joint feasibility studies and experiments on the changeover from existing applications
to an ATN architecture;

common pre-operational validation work in particular on air/ground communications,

which should help to alleviate R/T overloads as well as controller's workload ;

the development by industry of pre-operational products and ATN services.

In association with this pre-deployment joint activity, individual countries should take
concrete action to introduce elements of the ATN from 1998/99.

1
COM(94) 238 final. 14.6.1994.

CP/055app3\96

stlft>
2.2. The European component of a GNSS

When the 29th ICAO Assembly adopted the CNS/ATM concept it was recognised
world-wide that new technology could improve the capacity of the air transport,
infrastructure. Studies and experience acquired with the US military GPS demonstrated that
a space-based navigation system can also be of benefit to all other modes of transport.
Particular benefits for the aviation sector will come from greater accuracy in position
determination; and the ability to receive positioning signals over remote areas such as oceans
and desert regions.

The European Commission therefore decided to support the implementation of a global

navigation satellite system.

A Communication was adopted in June 19942 in order to define a way ahead for Europe. The
Ministers of Transport fully supported the initiative of the Commission and adopted a
Resolution in December 19943. The European Parliament also underlined the need to take
action on this4.

The European Commission, EUROCONTROL and the European Space Agency have
established a Tripartite Group to coordinate activities of the three organizations within the
framework of a European Satellite Navigation Action Programme. This programme
comprises two parallel elements :

the implementation of the European Contribution to the first generation of Global

Navigation Satellite System (GNSS 1) to enable users to gain early benefits from
existing military satellite systems (GPS, GLONASS) through the setting up of civilian
wide area and/or local area augmentation, the latter being needed for precision
approaches and increased navigational, accuracy, thus making possible new or reduced
separation standards and increased ATC capacity.

preparatory work needed for the design and organisation of the second generation
Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS 2) for civil use.

The ultimate objective of the European Commission is to contribute to the implementation

2
COM(94) 248 of 16.6.94

3
. JO n* C 379/3 du 31.12.1994

4
Coraelissen Report 30.11.1994

CP/055app3\96 3

/J^t
of a global system that can be certified as the sole means for all phases of flight. It is widely
recognised that GNSS 1 may only be a transitional step to that goal.

The Tripartite Group has already assembled budgetary provisions for the implementation of
a European contribution to GNSS l 5 : this budget will enable the Initial Operational
Capability (IOC) phase to be undertaken, based on a limited ground infrastructure. As well
as those technical developments, work has still to be done on defining the requirements for
an institutional framework7 for service provision, system operation, certification, liability,
etc.

Early benefits for the Air Traffic Management sector will therefore only be effective if :

resources are made available to enable the implementation of the Full Operational
Capability phase to be implemented. The potential for joint ventures between public and
private bodies should be explored;

an appropriate institutional framework is adopted to provide the necessary legal

instruments for certification, financing and exploitation of the IOC phase. The
Commission has already set up a High Level Advisory Group with representatives of
the national governments and all other relevant participants in order to flesh out such
a framework.

2.3 Surveillance

The extent to which surveillance is continuous, and of a high quality, has an obvious impact
on:

capacity, in as much as uniformity of surveillance facilitates the reduction of

separations, especially at frontiers between national systems, where differences in
performance levels have created unnecessarily large margins;

safety, to the extent that greater precision allows a swifter detection of possible
navigation errors.

For the short term projects therefore, the aim of Community action should be to encourage
the establishment of a comprehensive monitoring network which meets appropriate quality
standards (that is, those achievable with monopulse secondary radars). This means, in
descending order of priority :

setting up new monopulse radars, to provide total coverage

adapting existing interrogators to monopulse technology, and,

5
EC participation comes from the Trans European Transport Network and the 4th Framework
Programme.

CP/055app3'.96

si ûi
 bringing existing monopulse radars into line with the new surveillance standards.

For the medium term projects Community action will aim to develop pre-operational
validation and support measures in connection with the deployment of the new technologies
(Mode-S radar and ADS) . The broad thrust of this will be as follows :

technical and operational experiments to do with Mode-S, starting with the core area;
and preparatory measures for its deployment (such as revising radar network diagrams
and coverage charts);

setting-up an infrastructure for the retrieval of ADS data in the North Atlantic, the_
Mediterranean and the Scandinavian countries, and the integration of ADS data in
surveillance servers;

operational assessment of the effects of reducing vertical separations, particularly over

the North Atlantic.

2.4 Automation of operational coordination and new Data Processing Systems

Action in this area covers projects designed to increase the automation of operational
coordinations between controllers, and measures to ensure better integration and automation
of radar data and flight plan data processing systems.

Although appearing less obvious, the potential contribution of automatic data exchange
services in boosting capacity and improving safety is perhaps more important than those of
all the other improvements already mentioned. For instance, the replacement of voice
communication links between controllers by a system of automatic data exchange reduces the
controller's work load; and the effects of this in terms of increasing the productivity of the
controllers - although difficult to measure at this stage - could be considerable.

For short term projects, Community action should focus on the development of the national
data exchange networks, their interconnection and the automatic distribution of the various
types of ATC data (radars, flight plans and coordination messages). Possible projects could
include:

setting up or extending terrestrial data networks, based on international standards (X25,

ISDN, etc.);
installing the hardware needed for the interconnection of these networks;
installing network management systems to enhance the operational availability and
efficiency of the service provided;
implementing generic application protocols (X400, FTAM, etc.) and/or transport
protocols in support of specific automatic data-exchange applications between the
computers of ATC centres. In certain cases, this may mean that flight-plan processing
computers still in use at certain ATC centres have to be replaced.

Priorities for action - in descending order of importance - are to set up:

4
CP/055app3*.96

sUf
 transnational connections,
national networks or data links;
networks needed for the exchange of radar data.

For medium term projects, Community involvement will concentrate on the integration of
the Radar Data Processing Systems (RDPS) and the Flight Data Processing Systems (FDPS)
within a distributed data base structure. On the technical side, this will seek to:

implement RDPSs which comply with EUROCONTROL specifications for the

processing of radar data;

implement a new FDPS based on common functional specifications;

improve the degree of correlation between FDPS and RDPS.

In view of the complexity of the systems under consideration and the need for a common
approach to the development of new-generation RDPSs and FDPSs, the Community will give
priority to supporting pre-implementation measures. Possible examples of such measures
are :
feasibility studies and other necessary measures, such as the development of prototype
systems, for a common European approach to the new generation of FDPSs;

feasibility studies and other essential measures to do with adapting ATC centres to
enable them to use the RDPS specifications proposed by EUROCONTROL;

studies on adapting pilot surveillance systems to the needs of Mode-S.

CP/055app3'.96

/I**
 Appendix 4

RESEARCH AND TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT (RTD) ACTIVITIES

FOR AIR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT.

1. Introduction

The identification and planning of RTD activities in the field of ATM in Europe is a process
involving many interested parties, national administrations, research centres, universities and
systems manufacturers.

The concepts for the future ATM environment developed within the ICAO/FANS group,
which injected a new way of thinking in this field, addressed heavily the use of satellites,
particularly for communication and navigation purposes. This led EUROCONTROL and
then also European Space Agency (ESA) to include in their plans new subjects for RTD
activities for ATM improvement.
With the spirit of supporting the ICAO/CNS Concepts the Commission services being
involved under different titles in ATM RTD, started the ECARDA1 initiative with the
primary objective to coordinate RTD activities aimed at developing, evaluating and
demonstrating new operational concepts based on advanced ATM functions and
technologies so as to build the future European ATM system.

2. The future system

The future system is intended to be a well-understood, manageable, cost-effective and

dynamic system that keeps pace with user needs for safety, capacity and efficiency as well
as environmental requirements. This future system will be characterised by :

a. improved internetworking between elements of the system regardless of their physical

distribution (distributed system);

b. an increased degree of automation, providing system users and service providers with
increased efficiency through enhanced interfaces;

c. the flexibility to provide appropriate capacity to match the changes.in requirements

resulting from the evolving traffic patterns imposed by the fluctuations of the demand.

ECARDA (European Coherent Approach for RTD in Air traffic management, SEC (94) 1475), an inititiave
undertaken by the three DGs VII.XII, and Xm to define a coherent framework for RTD activities in the field of
ATM

055app4.96

Wl
 The ATM system can be broken down into its individual components and elements, as set
out below, and the RTD activities are assessing the various options to establish their benefits
and drawbacks to enable the future system configuration to be defined. Broadly, introducing
new procedures and technologies should facilitate the integration of the Flight Management
Systems on board aircraft and air traffic control functions in the ground; support all ATM
planning levels from strategic-long term through to operational monitoring and tactical
control; and speed up the introduction of improved airspace management.

2.1. Airspace Management

For airspace management, the application of area navigation (RNAV) techniques in ATM
can be made as new aircraft navigation systems are introduced. This will allow die
implementation of new route profiles, comprising for example parallel tracks, tubes, fixed*—-
and random routes, flexible, mixed or dynamic routes, which together with reduced
separation criteria will increase the utilisation of airspace, thereby contributing to an
expected increase in the ATM capacity. The airspace structure should be adapted in a
dynamic and flexible way to prevent restrictions on traffic flow during peak times.

2.2. ATM Procedures

The definition of the preferred ATM procedures is a very important part of the system
definition process and starts from the planning of ATM system capacity tô meet traffic
demand. A number of planning layers are envisaged with new roles being assigned to the
operators, covering Airspace Management (ASM), Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM)
and Air Traffic Control (ATC) at centre level, taking account of the options of traffic
segregation based on equipment fit, aircraft performance, reduced horizontal, vertical and/or
time separation standards, autonomous aircraft, free flight, dynamic sectorisation etc. To
expedite the flow of traffic, airport operations, including airlines systems, Advanced Surface
Movement Guidence Control and Management Systems (A-SMGCS) and landside
operations, have to be integrated into the ATM system.

2.3. Control Strategies

The design of the future ATM system depends heavily on how control is carried out and
where responsibilities will reside. The task sharing between the automated system
components, on the ground and in the air, and the human has to be addressed to establish
how automated systems could help the work of air traffic controllers and to which extent
they could take over functions presently exploited by the man. Suitable limits for the
involvement of the available automation technology have to be worked out to ensure that
safety requirements are always met. The division of responsibilities between pilot and
controller could also change significantly. In particular, the operations in and around
airports will be greatly affected by the introduction of new technologies which will enable
a greater efficiency in traffic flow, but will also require a new assessment of human
responsibilities.

2.4. Aircraft Systems

The future^ATM system considers the aircraft as an integral part of the whole and will rely
heavily on the aircraft systems fitted. Flight Management Systems (FMS) will have to be
coupled with GNSS receivers and ATN routers to perform ADS functions, to compute the
most convenient flight path, negotiate with the ground control and then comply with 4D

055app4.96 2
contracts for those parts of airspace where this will be needed; but also to decide whether
free flight can be carried out and, if so, where.

2.5. ATM Support Systems

As in the case of many other complex systems the future ATM system will have to cater
for the processing of a large amount of data, in real time for some applications, over
homogenous areas certainly bigger than today's national airspaces. This can only be
achieved by the introduction of ATM Support Systems to gather, process and distribute the
data for surveillance, flight planning, meteorological reporting and forecasting, civil/military
information exchange, airport/ATC/Airline Operational Centre (AOC) interconnection and
to support the necessary computer assistance (automation) tools.

2.6. Communications

Communications between the ground and the air in the future system will be characterised
by the silent mode of data transfer, implying a diminution of the use of traditional voice
communications: routine traffic would instead rely on data transmission (datalink) leaving
voice conversations for non-standard or specific situations. Ground-to-ground
communications will be through an Aeronautical Telecommunication Network (ATN) using
Open System Interconnection (OSI).

2.7. Navigation

The development and enhancement of navigation systems is aimed essentially at obtaining

the most cost-effective solutions to meet the levels of safety, integrity and performance
necessary for aircraft operations particularly under the conditions of high traffic density
within European airspace. It will start with the introduction of Area Navigation, both Basic
and Precision RNAV in 3D, followed by moves to 4D systems to obtain further gains in
ATM system capacity and runway utilisation using Global Navigation Satellite Systems
(GNSS) initially as a supplementary means of navigation, with the aircraft relying on on-
board inertial or ground based navigation systems as a primary navigation system; later as
a primary means, although there might be a need for a secondary navigation system for
safety/redundancy reasons.

2.8. Surveillance

For surveillance, the objective is to integrate and distribute all means (primary and
secondary radars and Automatic Dependent Surveillance (ADS)) through data fusion
techniques, so that an improved picture results. The situation over the oceans and over
terrain unsuitable for radar (where ADS based satellite systems are the only ones available)
should be distinguished from other land areas where there will continue to be extensive
radar coverage for the foreseeable future. The benefits of E-scan antennas deriving from
military applications will need to be assessed.

2.9. Validation

The validation of new concepts and features for the Air Traffic Management System
requires the performance of a number of exercises such as simulations and large scale, real
time demonstrations of the envisaged functions and procedures, with various degrees of
integration into a real environment. The validation strategy will plan, define and carry out

055app4.96 3

^ 3
 the validation exercises to ensure that the technical components, resources and data required
to run a validation exercise are available and work properly together to support an efficient
implementation. It shall also integrate the analysis of human factors linked with the use of
these new concepts and features and assess their acceptability in an operational environment.

3. The European Commission's RTD activities in the near future

The Air Transport part of the Transport RTD programme builds on results of the 2nd
Frame Work Programme (EURET), and is mainly addressing ATM, but contains also tasks
on air transport safety, environment protection and airport operations. Those related to
ATM and airport management were defined in the framework of the ECARDA initiative
with a total available budget of about 33 MECU.

As a result of the first Call for Proposal of the 4th F.P. in March 1995 for the part on
ATM 13 projects were selected for which the Community will spend a total of 11 MECU.
They address ATM functional architecture requirements, system modelling, simulation and
overall validation , the human/system roles and the advanced automation.

The requirements and operational implications for Communication Navigation and

Surveillance (CNS) will be covered in the next two Calls together with some other tasks
covering further the domains of the first Call.

The tasks related to the airport operations are addressing airport design, management issues
such as the different kinds of traffic flows within airports and the interface between airport
management and control systems on the one hand, and ATM on the other. Modelling and
simulation techniques will be developed, where appropriate, in order to define the system
requirements and high-level functional architecture of an Airport Movement Guidance
Control and Management System and will lead to a Demonstration exercise to validate the
safety, capacity, environment and efficiency benefits. The research will include an
examination of the impact of alternative operational strategies on the capacity and level of
service of European airports. The proposal selection of the first Call led to 4 projects
which will receive a total Community contribution of around 6 MECU.

The activities identified above will define the elements of the future system developing the
appropriate components and technologies and starting the process of validating their
contribution to the future system through demonstration.
This validation process of the overall system will continue into the 5th FP. The
progressive implementation of validated elements of the future system into existing systems
will bring progressive capacity improvements and could be supported amongst the initiatives
envisaged in the Trans-european Transport Network (TENS-T).

Within the Industrial and Material Technology RTD Programme some 230 MECU will be
utilized for Aeronautics activities of which around 25 MECU will be devoted to the
improvement of the airborne side of the future ATM system.
In the March 1995 Call for Proposals at least three projects have amongst their objectives
the definition of improved on-board systems to be integrated in the future CNS/ATM
environment. For other projects the links with ATM are of lesser importance but will
certainly be of relevance.

In the first activity it will be performed the development of a demonstrator for an Advanced
Flight Management System compatible with future European CNS /ATM environment,

055app4.96 4

still
 including flight plan negotiation and 4D planning/guidance, the role of the crew as the
manager of the airborne part of the future ATM system, the ovearall system integrity and
user oriented functionality and cost-effectiveness.

Another project aims at the demonstration of a system enabling the safe continuation of
aircraft operations in poor weather at a wide range of airfields with under-equipped
runways. The solution is based on the use of emerging technologies like Enhanced Vision
Systems (EVS) based on fusion of sensors and database, or Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS)
based on precise positioning of aircraft and database.

The reduction of separations of aircraft in the landing phase to overcome one of the capacity
limiting factors of the future ATM system is amongst the objectives on another RTD
activity. In fact these separations are imposed by the hazards to the following aircraft—"-
created by the wake vortices of the preceding aircraft. This can be achieved by airborne
multifunction equipment not only for wake vortex detection but also for dry windshear
predictive detection, clear air turbulence, volcanic ash, gust alleviation, etc.

Amongst the projects that are less directly connected to the ATM environment it is worth
mentioning one on advanced avionics aiming at defining and validating a demonstrator of
a generic scalable computing architecture which would be used as a general purpose multi-
applications computing platform into avionics providing i.a. CNS/ATM functionalities.

For the Transport Telematics sector of the Telematics Application RTD programme, about
60% of the budget will be committed as a result of the 1995 Call for Proposals which
closed in March. The timetable for subsequent calls is not decided. It is intended to commit
approximately 20 MECU for Air Transport projects in '95, with a further 14 MECU to be
secured for those actions at a later date. Member States have been given an indication that
some 25% of the total budget will be spent on Air Transport in the course of the
programme.

Following the mentioned Call for Proposals , covering all topics of the Workprogramme,
14 proposals were selected for funding on Communications, Navigation and Surveillance,
Airports,Controller Tools, Airborne Air Traffic Management Functions.

As in the case of the other Specific Programmes, the projects selected continue previous
work funded through the second Framework Programme or through preparatory actions.
The focus is on the provision of surveillance data through the integration of communications
and navigation technology and experimentation with satellite navigation systems. The use
of two-way data links and the integration with the Aeronautical Telecommunications
Network are addressed as well as the experiments with the use of self-organising TDMA.
Application of communication, navigation and surveillance technology to presently unserved
airspace is also considered. The development of GNSS-1 is supported in multimodal
projects. These demonstrate the exploitation of GNSS-1 by various user segments, including
aviation and the possible transition to GNSS-2.

Within the Airports domain the intention is to obtain a demonstrator of an advanced surface
movement guidance and control system, improving traffic flow at airports. Projects
currently supported represent partial solutions, addressing one. a guidance system and
protection against intrusion, while the other will investigate the problems of surveillance
data fusion at airports.

055app4.96 5

SI si $
 When addressing the Controller Tools several different aspects of the controller's task are
considered in attempts to improve traffic handling. A task closely related to the airports
work described above, will provide tools to assist planning and management of ground
movements, while another will similarly support the tower and en-route controller.

The airborne functions will become relatively more important in future air traffic
management systems and the development of airborne air traffic management functions is
covered.The possible integration of future airborne collision avoidance systems and
ground-biised short term conflict alert is also addressed.
Within the ECARDA context, future work in Transport Telematics will seek to complete
the airports systems demonstrator, improve airborne situation awareness and explore the
need for a next generation of navigation satellites (GNSS-2). Further work will also be done
on overall system architecture and the possible user benefits to be obtained from increased
integration of traffic management, self-organising TDMA and other communications, airport
and airline operational systems.

Conclusions

The outcome of the research will support pre-normative, pre-legislative activities, leading
to international standardisation and prepare the implementation of the operational system
satisfying user needs for safety, capacity and efficiency as well as environmental demands.

The RTD activities mainly performed by consortia of different organisations (industry,

research centres, university, airlines, etc.) coming from all European Member States to
further the definition of the future ATM system, will bring improvements through the cross-
fertilisation of different European working styles and environments, resulting in an overall
increase of technical knowledge and awareness, forming a solid background to face the
world-wide competition, not only for industry, but also for other actors'performing research
activities which more and more need to be on the "leading edge".

The efforts undertaken following the ECARDA initiative that led to the RTD action in the
4th Framework Programme will have to be carried on and improved by means of the above-
mentioned continuous co-ordination process, having Member States directly involved to
monitor and advise, together with EUROCONTROL, in planning following phases.

Three main strands for action can be identified as a result of the monitoring, advising and
planning functions : indication for further RTD action, selection for RTD results to be put
into operation, with the resulting infrastructure projects or standardization activities.

055app4.96 6
 ISSN 0254-1475

COM(96) 57 final

DOCUMENTS

EN 07

Catalogue number : CB-CO-96-104-EN-C

ISBN 92-78-01347-1

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