Birmingham airport implements electronic flights progress strips

Birmingham airport implements electronic flights progress strips
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Birmingham Airport has implemented a new flight data display system within its Air Traffic Control Tower to further enhance how it handles the hundred thousand flights per year that operate in and out of the Airport.

Electronic Flight Progress Strips (EFPS) have replaced the old paper-based system that Air Traffic Controllers used to monitor and track the progress for each flight operating in and out of Birmingham Airport.

The main benefits of EFPS include safety nets to assist controllers in detecting potential conflicts between aircraft and vehicles, reduce verbal coordination required between controllers, and information sharing with other Birmingham Airport stakeholders, all of which help to enhance safety and increase capacity. The system also benefits from the implementation of a new Advanced Surface Movement Guidance Control System (ASMGCS) – using new Ground Surface Radar and Multilateration Data.

The new systems have been co-financed by the European Union - Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA)

Nick James, Head of Air Navigation Services at Birmingham Airport, said: “Airport and European Investment in the latest Air Traffic Control systems and technologies demonstrate the ambition to develop the wider Air Traffic Management network to facilitate efficiencies and growing demand across Europe, and ensures that Birmingham Airport is well positioned to accommodate future demand.”

EFPS is part of a wider project investing in upgrades to the ATC infrastructure, including Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System and Departure Manager. These systems will facilitate the introduction of Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) processes.

More information about the ADB-Safegate/Avibit EFPS system can be found here.

 

I imagine there will be some benefits of computerising such systems but what happens when there's a power failure. The main reason for leaving this process a manual one for so many years was so there would always be a record of where aircraft are in the system in the event of a systems or power failure. I would be interested to know what fail safes are now in place?

 

I imagine there will be some benefits of computerising such systems but what happens when there's a power failure. The main reason for leaving this process a manual one for so many years was so there would always be a record of where aircraft are in the system in the event of a systems or power failure. I would be interested to know what fail safes are now in place?

Prestwick Control (who control traffic in the Scottish FIR) have been using electronic strips for 4/5 years now. I believe Swanwick (controls London FIR) have started using them recently as well, so this is hardly untested/new technology (not a dig at Birmingham).

One would assume that backups are saved every so often, so if there was a power outage, when the power came back nothing had been lost. There's so many backups and redundancy's in aviation I'm not sure a failure would get so far as to be an issue...

 

Must be a slow news day as this has been in place for almost two years now

 

Must have been delivered by EFPS Ray!