Interval management operations in the terminal airspace of Amsterdam airport schiphol

For the Schiphol terminal airspace, a new handling concept is developed with fixed arrival routes and continuous descent approaches. The aviation sector agrees that fixed arrival routes are desired from the TMA boundary to the runway related to predictability and enabling continuous descent approaches. Fixed arrival routes however have the tendency to negatively affect capacity and Schiphol can afford no loss of capacity. Therefore, research is done for innovative ways to handle the incoming traffic, to make high capacity combined with fixed arrival routes possible. Interval Management (IM) is seen as one of the promising innovations to support the new handling concept at Schiphol. With IM, aircraft exchange flight information via ADS-B and use this information to control an ATC assigned time interval with a lead aircraft. It is assumed that this close loop control provides the accuracy and predictability that is required to maintain peak hour capacity. The KDC IM research involves a number of phases. In the first phase requirements were captured. During the second phase fast-time simulations were performed to evaluate the spacing performance. The outcome of these simulations is positive: IM can generate the required performance in the Schiphol terminal environment, allowing high-density operations on fixed routes with continuous descents. The third phase progressed with IM real-time simulations (RTS) to assess controller acceptance and workload and to evaluate the IM procedures and IM support tools. The main results of the RTS are: - All controllers readily accepted and appreciated the IM Concept of Operations and were able to safely and efficiently manage the arrival traffic in all scenarios, including non-normal events, with the newly developed HMI. - Perceived controller workload was generally well within predefined targets in all scenarios. - The average number of R/T instructions per aircraft did not vary much between IM and non-IM operations. - The percentage of (unanticipated) IM cancellations by the controller was very low (<3%).