The air transportation system is a complex network of people, systems and processes4. Collectively, the people involved in managing air traffic are referred to as the ATM community and, according to the Global Air Traffic Management Operational Concept (Doc. 9854, Appendix A) comprise, in alphabetical order:
Within that ATM community, there are producers and consumers of aeronautical data and information, and then there is a particular user group that is directly and actively engaged in all facets of flight operations. These end users are the controllers, pilots and dispatchers, and we refer to them as the ATM (operations) actors, as shown inFigure . These actors require direct operational access to aeronautical information. They are becoming increasingly and tightly interconnected, via broadband Internet Protocol (IP) connection or data link. In particular, by having continuous access to a plethora of aeronautical information, these ATM actors share common situational awareness within this global net-centric environment. Thus, they can now make better and faster operational decisions - collaboratively.
As mentioned in Chapter 6, some members of the ATM community are both, producers and consumers of aeronautical data and information, like airspace designers and instrument procedure designers, and yet others help shape the air transportation system from a more strategic perspective, the latter being, for example, airport planners, airspace planners, ATM reaserchers, etc.
Another way of looking at who within the ATM community is an end user of aeronautical information is shown in Table . Here, members of the ATM community are identified according to the different phases of the operation, namely Planning and Reference, Pre-flight, In-flight, Turn-around and Post-flight phase. The turn-around phase is mentioned here to help identify the information end users during this critical operational phase between subsequent flights. As we can see, all members of the ATM community are users of aeronautical information during planning and reference as well as during the post-flight phase. It is during the critical in-flight as well as the turn-around phase, that only the aforementioned ATM actors are information users.
|
Planning & Reference
|
Pre-flight
|
In-flight
|
Turn-around
|
Post-flight
|
Aerodrome community
|
x
|
x
|
|
x
|
x
|
Airspace providers
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
|
x
|
Airspace users
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
ATM service providers
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
ATM support industry
|
x
|
x
|
|
|
x
|
ICAO
|
x
|
|
|
|
x
|
Regulatory authorities
|
x
|
|
|
|
x
|
States
|
x
|
|
|
|
x
|
As will be discussed in the following chapter, we note that, in general, there is a well-established, one-dimensional aeronautical data chain, from source data acquisition to end user, with the exception of airspace designers and instrument procedure designers who play a dual role as producers and consumers of aeronautical data and information, as mentioned previously.
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