EUROCONTROL DANUBE FAB real-time simulation 7 November - 2 December 2011 Visitor Information DANUBE FAB in context The framework for the creation and operation of a Functional Airspace Block (FAB) is laid down in the Single European Sky (SES) legislation of the European Commission. The SES regulations came into force in April 2004, with the aim of initiating the redesign of European air traffic management (ATM) as a flexible, harmonised and seamless network, independent of national boundaries. The SES aims to optimise airspace usage and capacity in order to minimise restrictions related to air traffic control and maximise airport throughput. Taking into consideration the bottom-up approach defined by the SES Regulations, air navigation services providers (ANSPs) ROMATSA and BULATSA have agreed to identify the prerequisites for the establishment of a FAB. The initiative was proposed by the two ANSPs, with the aim of commencing the activities necessary for identifying and fulfilling the prerequisites for the establishment of a FAB on the basis of a cooperative approach. One of these prerequisites is the provision of seamless air navigation services in the area covered by the initiative, which includes the harmonisation and interoperability of the different systems and associated procedures of the ATM network in the area. The DANUBE FAB Feasibility Study Phase was completed in July 2008. It defined the DANUBE FAB concept and the high-level implementation plan. It tackled all the issues relevant to the creation of the DANUBE FAB, such as the operational, technical, financial and civil-military coordination requirements, the environmental impact and training, human resources and legal aspects. The preliminary design phase (2009-2010) focused on all of the arrangements that must be in place prior to the start of operations in the DANUBE FAB airspace to ensure the smooth transfer of responsibility for providing air navigation services (ANS), supported by the necessary regulatory and physical prerequisites. The objective of this phase was to detail and plan all necessary actions, implementation and validation processes to be performed, to address the detailed design of a new airspace structure, the definition of the interoperability requirements, the identification of solutions, and the legal, institutional and social issues identified in the previous phase and to carry out a safety assessment for this phase of the project. The detailed design and pre-implementation phase (2011-2012) aims to develop the minimum requirements for interoperability of the ATM systems, in accordance with the available SESAR requirements. All the necessary operational enablers will be put into a pre-operation mode during this period of time. This step-by-step approach will enable the safe and secure implementation of the DANUBE FAB. The implementation phase will begin in 2013. The management of BULATSA and ROMATSA requested EUROCONTROL s assistance in the DANUBE FAB design and pre-implementation phases from 2010 to end 2012.
EUROCONTROL s role Selecting the best option To support the DANUBE FAB project, EUROCONTROL has been tasked with providing services such as: the development of a safety case; the assessment of legal and institutional aspects from the ANSP perspective; a study of the target system architecture; a data link infrastructure study; the identification and assessment of the environmental aspects and impacts of the DANUBE FAB; and a real-time simulation to validate and compare different airspace scenarios and to assess the safety of DANUBE FAB. FABs offer a unique opportunity to optimise the provision of air navigation services in a large geographical context. Airspace organisation may be redesigned to be free of the constraints of national borders, safety may be increased, working procedures may be optimised and harmonised among the participating national service providers, and systems may be adapted to support high levels of interoperability. With a multitude of options and combinations of candidate solutions available, experts are faced with the challenge of selecting the best option, namely the one that will deliver the most significant improvement in the key performance areas targeted. Assisting in this selection process is what this first DANUBE FAB real-time simulation must do, by providing relevant and reliable information for the decision makers. For the information to be relevant, reliable and credible it must be based on robust working methods, recognised expertise and a simulated environment which provides the highest possible degree of realism. European operational concept validation method The whole validation exercise supported by this real-time simulation was designed in accordance with the guidelines defined in the European operational concept validation method (E-OCVM) document, thus providing a robust and proven approach in the design, conduct and reporting of the validation activities. The major steps structuring the development of the validation and real-time simulation include an assessment of the current situation, an identifciation of the stakeholders and a review of their expectations, a description of the candidate solutions in terms of changes in airspace design, working procedures and ATC system. Experts used the previous elements to derive the benefit mechanisms, i.e. the ways in which the planned changes will contribute to achieving the objectives in terms of key performance improvements. This will now lead to the formulation of a series of concrete claims and the identification of the required evidence that should be collected during the real-time simulation.
Stakeholder expectations Stakeholders have challenging expectations regarding the future functional airspace blocks. To gauge these expectations in relation to the DANUBE FAB, a group of experts from both ROMATSA and BULATSA, and EUROCONTROL met and identified, inter alia, the following major expectations related to the ATC concept aspects of this real-time simulation. International organisations expect the DANUBE FAB to be implemented in accordance with the Single European Sky and national regulations, to meet European capacity objectives, to comply with network management requirements and to be at least as safe as today s operation. Airspace users look forward to improvements in flight efficiency (shorter routes) and further implementation of flexible use of airspace (FUA). Together with the service providers, the airspace users also count on functional airspace blocks to deliver benefits in terms of capacity, safety, en-route delays, cost efficiency, military mission effectiveness and reduced environmental impact. Other expectations shared amongst different stakeholders are advanced harmonisation of ATC systems, with increased interoperability, and harmonised procedures for crossborder and civil-military operations. free routes, with direct routes between entry and exit points of the DANUBE FAB airspace; common flow and capacity management and common airspace management, supported by enablers, focussing primarily on system support enhancement: system coordination (SYSCO) between the two area control centres (ACC), and mode S and controller-pilot data link communications (CPDLC); and advanced flexible use of airspace (FUA) with the airspace use plan (AUP) and regular updates to the airspace use plan (UUP). Previous work This first DANUBE FAB real-time simulation was preceded by considerable work in the area of airspace design by means of various simulation and modelling tools, such as NEVAC, SAAM and RAMS, which led to a large number of possible future sectorisations. These various simulations and modelling exercises, exploring the series of sector ideas, identified some capacity problems with 2015 traffic levels. The graph below shows the trend for a representative sector in one of the sector ideas for 2015 traffic. Both the traffic level and the controller workload exceed acceptable levels. Candidate solutions and airspace design To address the wide spectrum of expectations, a series of candidate solutions (changes to current operations) based on a number of principles of operation have been designed, such as: the introduction of up to 80 new routes and the implementation of shortest routes, available at planning level; new sectorisation based on additional sectors and cross-border sectors in response to the introduction of new routes; new procedures and letters of agreement to foster the creation of a single airspace continuum; the replacement of temporary segregated areas (TSA) with less constraining temporary reserved areas (TRA); Based on this study, eight candidate sectorisations were retained for further validation in the real-time simulation.
Simulation objectives The preparatory work showed that the central objective of the Danube FAB project should be to improve the flight efficiency in the Danube FAB airspace, while maintaining or improving the other key performance areas, such as safety, capacity, cost, etc. Hence the core objective of the Danube FAB RTS: Demonstrate that the proposed changes will improve the flight efficiency (route extension) in the Danube FAB airspace, while maintaining or improving safety and delivering the required capacity. From this core objective and the validation case derived in the previous section, it is now possible to formulate the highlevel objectives of the simulation. The Danube FAB RTS will comprise two types of activities: Preparing for the real-time simulation Benefit mechanisms Before proceeding with the organisation of the real-time simulation, two sets of candidate solutions and sectorisations were set out in detail: one covering the introduction of shorter routes in high traffic periods and another dedicated to the introduction of free routes in low traffic periods. This also facilitated the construction of the benefits mechanisms, i.e. the elementary mechanisms that will generate the anticipated key performance improvements. Validation case Similar to cases developed in the framework of safety cases, and as recommended by the E-OCVM, a validation case was developed for this real-time simulation. The first step involved formulating a set of unambiguous, highlevel claims, which would then be further developed in elementary claims by means of arguments and ultimately supported by a set of required evidence (to be collected during the real-time simulation). 1. prototyping/developing procedures for the shortest route option within a new fixed route network and with a new sectorisation inside the Danube FAB airspace (ORG 1, 2, 3); and 2. validating procedures for free route operations (direct entry to exit routes) with a new sectorisation inside the Danube FAB airspace (ORG FR). In addition, as identified in the analysis of the stakeholders, the simulation exercises will serve to increase the awareness and buy-in of the major stakeholders. Simulated environment The traffic samples to be used for the whole Danube FAB RTS are be based on the traffic data collected on 2 July 2010. This was further processed to create two traffic samples, one with military activity and one without, and finally expanded to reach the predicted traffic levels of 2015 using the flight increase processor software (FIPS). The human-machine interface, with the individual functionalities of each ANSP, will be simulated as it is expected to be by 2015. The simulated airspace includes the entire flight information region (FIR) of BULATSA and ROMATSA, with up to 27 simulated sectors.
Main traffic flows to and from Istanbul Main traffic flows to and from the Middle and Far East Danube FAB airspace (ORG 1) with cross-border sectorisation Main traffic flows to and from main cities in the area, arriving and departing from and to Western and Central Europe Danube FAB airways for free routes (ORG FR)
Experimental design The experimental design is built to address the validation objectives, to present an appropriate number of experimental conditions to the controllers and to obtain their feedback. The main experimental variable of the DANUBE FAB RTS is airspace design, namely the three operational scenarios for high traffic levels and the new free routes airspace design. Military dimension Military airspace users and military ATC service providers are intensively involved in the preparation for, and are actively participating in the execution of this real-time simulation. They have expectations regarding, for example: the further implementation and improvement of flexible use of airspace (FUA), with a unified concept of civil/military cooperation; the replacement of temporary segregated areas (TSA) with less restrictive temporary reserved areas (TRA); improvements in cooperation and search and rescue (SAR) activities; the harmonisation of procedures for cross-border operations and for civil/military cooperation; the future establishment of cross-border areas (CBA) used by the military air forces of both States.
Safety EUROCONTROL and the DANUBE FAB service providers are addressing all safety matters related to the implementation of the new concept elements of the DANUBE FAB as part of a dedicated work package. Hence, although this real-time simulation will not deliver a safety assessment, it will nevertheless focus on the hot spots and collect pertinent safety metrics to support the overall safety case. EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre The EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre (EEC), located in Brétigny-sur-Orge, France, carries out R&D and innovative studies, as well as various sorts of simulations, providing high-quality data and results, both to contribute to the SESAR programme and to support the improvement of European ATM performance.
Further information and contact points Additional information regarding the Danube FAB project can be found on the Danube FAB web site: http://www.danubefab.eu or by contacting: Veselin Stoyanov BULATSA veselin.stoyanov@bulatsa.com Daniel Harea ROMATSA daniel.harea@romatsa.ro Stefan Öze EUROCONTROL Stefan.oze@eurocontrol.int For more information about EUROCONTROL: visit our website www.eurocontrol.int or send a email to corporate.communications@eurocontrol.int November 2011 - European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (EUROCONTROL) This document is published by EUROCONTROL for information purposes. It may be copied in whole or in part, provided that EUROCONTROL is mentioned as the source and it is not used for commercial purposes (i.e. for financial gain). The information in this document may not be modified without prior written permission from EUROCONTROL. www.eurocontrol.int