European Action Plan for the Prevention of Runway Incursions recommends the tracking of vehicle movements

Last month saw EUROCONTROL’s Network Manager issue it’s third version of the European Action Plan for the Prevention of Runway Incursions (EAPPRI V3.0). The report identifies that runway incursions remain a significant risk with a minimum of two runway incursions occurring each day across Europe. The latest version of the EAPPRI takes findings from these incidents to make new recommendations and creates further guidance for the improvement of runway safety.

Contributions to the plan were made by operational staff that had experienced a runway incursion through their incident reports. This identified that one of the main causes for a runway incursion occurring was a breakdown in communications, with many pilots and drivers on a runway without a valid ATC clearance in fact believing that they did have permission to be there.

The publication discussed that the implementation of Safety Management Systems and the establishment of aerodrome local Runway Safety Teams had improved operational runway safety. However, there have also been a number of recommendations after re-assessing the effectiveness of these practices to ensure that the delivery of runway safety operations is paramount.

At AIM we were particularly interested in the emerging technologies recommendations made in the EAPPRI V3. This included the following suggestions around the use of vehicles at airports and GPS tracking:

To enable the tracking of vehicle movements on the manoeuvring area of aerodrome, when possible, to assist the Aerodrome Operator prevention of runway incursions.
That Aerodrome Operators record and track vehicles entering the manoeuvring area through the use of vehicle progress strips.
To introduce procedures to increase situational awareness of ATC and drivers when vehicles occupy a runway for example Vehicle ‘Operations Normal’ calls to ATC.
Promote the integration of safety nets to provide immediate and simultaneous runway and traffic proximity alerts for pilots, air traffic controllers and manoeuvring area vehicle drivers.
Improving situational awareness of operational staff on the manoeuvring area to confirm their location in relation to the runway for example by GPS.

We are delighted that our full safety management system, AIM, can assist with the prevention of runway incursions. Our system was designed with UK airports and is an affordable solution, with many of AIM’s capabilities listed in the recommendations of the EAPPRI relating to vehicles and GPS.

You can download the European Action Plan for the Prevention of Runway Incursions here, for a full explanation of all the recommendations. This includes the points highlighted in this article around vehicle safety on runways and the new recommendations that have been made to further encourage runway safety.

Airside Incursion Mitigation (AIM) is the award-winning runway incursion protection and CAA compliance evidence system from Simplytrak. If you would like to learn more about how AIM can assist in the prevention of runway incursions in your airport then contact your Business Development Manager Ian Wood at ian@simplytrak.com to arrange a meeting to discuss your requirements and for a full demonstration.