Prague Airport: Turning Data into Competitive Advantage

Digital Transformation Award 2023 - Winner
ACI EUROPE

The capacity of Prague Airport was nearing its limits in the course of 2019. Day to day operations is even now associated with lack of airport resources combined with lack of personnel and increased safety risks of airside operations. The question we asked was: How to deal with ever-growing traffic when delivery of additional capacity is beyond reasonable time frame?

Our solution is advanced automation and digitalization of processes, data sharing and centralization of concerned platforms.

This approach is widely appreciated by all stakeholders and led us to gradual transformation of operational environment based on data driven principles.

Data Driven Principles

DATA COLLECTION - Centralization of all available data for future use in collaborative decision making process
DATA INTEGRATION - Development of modern data-exchange platform to achieve B2B connectivity with various stakeholders or systems
PROCESS AUTOMATION - Introduction of new machine-learning algorithm to predict future operational timestamps and process durations
SITUATIONAL AWARENESS - Use of digital data to increase safety of all airside stakeholders

Solutions

AeroTrafficPrague (ATP)

Improving The Safety by Digitalization

AeroTrafficPrague (ATP) is an in-house developed web application enhancing the level of safety aiming to prevent the occurrence of runway and taxiway incursions caused by vehicle drivers.

The application implements functionalities of SESAR Solution #04 Enhanced Situational Awareness and Airport Safety Nets for vehicle drivers.

ATP goes beyond the original scope of SESAR Solution #04 as it is providing real-time information about hazardous weather phenomena (e.g. thunderstorm activity inside the airport’s perimeter, LVP) to airside personnel.

Main Safety Features

Main features include provision of Airport Moving Map in the vehicle, coupled with the display of surrounding traffic while indicating vehicle’s own position.

System is generating alerts (visual and aural) when potentially dangerous situations arise:

	Traffic alerts: To warn vehicle driver of a potential conflict with an aircraft or a vehicle with right of way
	Area Infringement alerts: Closed areas (e.g. due to construction) Restricted areas (RWY and TWY infringement)
	Meteorological alerts: Thunderstorm activity, Low visibility procedures, Strong winds

LIVE DEMO HERE

Management of Adverse Weather Conditions

PRINCE – Prague Information Cockpit Ecosystem

Web based integrated multi-functional platform for real-time monitoring and management of AOP at LKPR (Meteo, A-CDM, De-icing, Passenger flow, …)
Common platform for all stakeholders and future APOC
Result of collaborative approach to:
- Safety requirements (IATA Ground Ops Manual)
- Improved efficiency
- Mutual data sharing

Adverse Weather Module

Decoded meteorological messages
Night restrictions visualisation
Significant weather forecast up to 120 hours
Visualization of airport resources operational limitations
Visualisation of movement area contamination
Winter operations scenarios
Weather alerts to all stakeholders
Proposed recommended procedures (task lists)

AutoTOBT

Machine Learning in A-CDM

Motivation:
- Increase of departure predictability
- Improved on-time performance
- Lower ground handling workload
- Lower overall delay
Model for turnaround time calculation was developed in cooperation with Eurocontrol as part of EATIN initiative (Project OpTT led by PRG) and confirmed on data from several other airports (FCO, GVA, Swedavia).
Further perfected into autoTOBT calculation during validation of SESAR 2020 PJ04 Solution 28.2 (so called LiteAPOC).

Integration Service Hub

B2B Communication
INTEGRATION SERVICE HUB is a cost-effective solution connecting internal systems and communicating with external partners. It also enables us to run various micro-service (e.g. AutoTOBT calculation), leading to improved business outcome.
Messaging in ISH is based on Kafka distributed streaming platform designed to handle high volumes of data in real-time. It provides high throughput, low latency, and fault-tolerant capabilities.
Main features of the ISH:

Scalability	Real-time processing
Flexibility	Reliable messaging

ATP

First app for real-time alerting of runway and taxiway incursion for vehicle drivers.
First app inside GSE for adverse weather alerting.

ADVERSE WEATHER MODULE

Unique display of weather impacts to airport procedures and infrastructure capacity.
Advanced display of chosen operational scenarios in winter conditions.