Charting New Territory and Government's Policy

28 August 2008, 8:48pm

Manchester Airport is the largest UK airport outside the southeast. It is a 625 hectare site serving 22.7 million passengers flying to 225 worldwide destinations per year. 151,000 tonnes of freight pass through the airport each year and, at peak usage, it can operate 61 flights per hour from its two runways. Offices and franchises on the site are let to 310 companies, employing 19,300 people. With the Government policy supporting the growth of airports, by 2030 Manchester is expected to increase enormously with all the downside that such development comports. ESRI(UK) supplied the GIS assisting Manchester Airport Group with sustainable development plans.

A growing major international airport can affect the lives of many people who live nearby, with 60,000 passengers using the airport everyday; 80,000 vehicles coming to the airport site daily; 22,000 car parking spaces and 24 hour rail services.
On the other hand there are environmental impacts to be managed around the 40,000 people within the 57db noise contour and there is an area of 350 hectares of land set aside for ecology management.

THE CHALLENGE

The increase in passengers and freight using Manchester Airport from all over the country has brought with it new challenges and developments. With Government policy supporting the growth of airports, by 2030 Manchester is expected to be handling 50 million passengers, an increase of 33 million from 2008 levels.

The airport needed to be able to model how it would adapt the existing operational area to handle passenger growth, using geographic information systems (GIS) to plan its future and manage its environmental and commercial operations.

“With this degree of change, and the Government's policy of supporting the expected growth and development of the airport, it was vital that we considered how we would plan our infrastructure and what technology we would need for the future,” said Vickie Withnell from Manchester Airport Group’s Planning Team.

SOLUTION AND CAPABILITIES DELIVERED

The need to plot, analyse and mitigate operational impact, not only on the airport’s core site but also within the local area, led the airport to review available software and invest in ArcView 3.1 and 3.2 in 1996. The software was found to be the most adaptable and open-ended, meeting the airport’s needs at the time while also having the capability to grow with the airport.

In 2002 the airport installed ArcGIS 8.3, SDE (Spatial Database Engine) and IMS (Intranet Mapping Solution) to analyse the countrywide growth in freight and passengers, and how the airport was being used, and gain more information on needs of passengers and staff.

The productivity of ArcEditor whetted the Planning Team’s appetite, as they found that each incremental upgrade, and the consequent increase in speed, helped them develop more specialist solutions while working on numerous GIS projects.

When ArcGIS 9.2 was developed, the airport upgraded as it was looking for the capability to:

1. Record tenant details centrally, including space used. This would help the airport track when leases would be due for renewal and create marketing strategies to target prospects as space became available

2. Give contractors and other agencies access to shared data. The airport views it as a major customer service benefit to be able to share files and provide data, saving contractors time when developing areas of the site by being able to view consistent and accurate ready-made data

3. Monitor its noise levels. The airport works with an external agency that uses other sophisticated airport systems to decide the positioning of noise monitors for convenience and best fit. The agency’s noise data is imported into the GIS and used to analyse noise levels as well as providing an overview of the effectiveness of the noise monitors

4. Sort and geocode specific data without needing to import scripts as the toolbox contains all the geocode scripting, for example a measuring tool bar, saving the airport two weeks when putting maps together .


“ESRI stood out because of its open functionality rather than being a bespoke solution. Upgrading to ArcGIS 9.2 took 30 minutes, with no loss of productivity, and gave us a base layer from which we can work with our data warehouse,” said Vickie.


THE BENEFITS

With ArcGIS 9.2, map drawing speed is up to 15 times faster than earlier systems used. This enables Manchester Airport to perform more up to date geographic analysis each day than was possible previously. ArcGIS 9.2 performs the complete cartographic production process and can create, play back and export time-based graphs of how spatially based patterns and trends evolve - for example, the change in noise levels over a typical day.

The functionality of rendering CAD files into the GIS and being able to save data files directly into Excel, rather than as DBF4 database files, saves the airport valuable IT resource and time.

“ArcGIS 9.2 is an efficient way to manage time, effort and budgets,” explained Vickie. “It integrates seamlessly into our business and evolves with our needs, helping us fulfill our stated aims of being a responsible neighbour, investing in our community and spending money on the things that really matter,” she added.

With ArcGIS 9.2 £160,000 per year is being saved on the cost of operational map production, and approximately 1,200 man hours saved on activities that include sending staff round the site to record details of the airport’s runway lights manually.

The GIS has also proven to be a cost-efficient way to share personal and workgroup geodata with tenants and contractors across the site and with local authorities and other relevant groups.

One of the airport’s long term aims is to have 40 per cent of its passengers and 50 per cent of staff using public transport. GIS is used to enable this, by planning 24 hour bus, rail and coach times and routes and how these link with both staff and customer locations.

“We can use GIS to track the demographics of our staff and passengers so that we know where to put car parks, and work with the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive to plan suitable public transport services,” added Vickie.

GIS has ensured that the airport has met government requirements to measure and reduce noise levels each year. Analysing noise previously took three weeks but now takes just 20 minutes.

Planning permission applications within the airport’s area of operations are passed on to the airport by the relevant local council. Using GIS, the airport can plot accurately how proposed developments would impact on the airport’s operations and respond accordingly.

The airport presents a wealth of educational opportunities, around which the Community Team produces education packs and storyboards for local primary and secondary schools. This is a particular area where GIS delivers high value with low impact for the business, in that it is used to create area address lists for mailing the packs. This saves the Community Team £20,000 per year on using an external map agency, as education packs can be two weeks of work, equating to four months work per year.

Sensitive to its impact on the community, the airport uses GIS to help meet its obligations under the Sound Insulation Grant Scheme and Vortex Repair Scheme. The Sound Insulation Grant Scheme provides financial assistance towards the installation of sound-proof glazing in the areas most affected by aircraft noise. The scheme boundary is based on ‘noise contours’ that identify the areas affected by moderate to high levels of noise, currently including some 26,000 domestic properties.

The Vortex Repair Scheme provides for repairs to be made to houses where air disturbance created by aircraft has caused movement or slippage to tiles. GIS is used to analyse the impact on local areas as the basis for this.


THE FUTURE

Having experienced and benefitted from the wide range of GIS usage over the past 15 years, the airport is now looking to future possibilities for this technology that is transforming the way the airport operates on a daily basis.

The wide range of potential uses currently being explored includes:

* Pavement management – viewing pavement quality, patterns of failure and how to manage and maintain them

* Utility management, including where to locate utility lines

* Mapping flights and airspace usage

* Ongoing analysis of noise impact to develop noise mitigation programmes


“We support the Government’s commitment to the principles of sustainable development in the aviation industry, striking a balance between economic, social and environmental considerations. With ESRI, we are able to use the latest technology to help us fulfill our aims,” said Vickie.

www.esriuk.com

BBC Environment & Science Correspondent to speak at ESRI’s EMEA User Conference 2008