FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1950
1950 - 0130.PDF
FLIGHT, 19 January 1950 LONDON AIRPORT GROUND TRAFFIC . . . the Central Area involved a study of road systems and car parks The following are the main requirements which must be met in any road system in the Central Area: — (a) The apron traffic and that on the public road systembehind the buildings must be completely separated. (b) The apron vehicles concerned with passenger handling, i.e..baggage trucks and passenger buses should always feed into the buildings on the apron side in order that passengers and baggagemay be "processed" in the correct sequence. The conveyor system is recommended, combined with a road from the outer stands either to the ends or underneath the buildings, so that apron traffic can be kept separate from the public road traffic in the Central Area, the latter traffic being outside Customs control. The building must then be designed to accept arriving loads through side-entrances which lead the passengers and baggage into the correct direction of flow through the handling buildings, that is, front to rear. It is estimated that with the possible passenger movement rate of up to 3,000 per hour, some 60 buses (carrying 30 passengers each) and 600 private cars (carrying two passengers each) will make a total of nearly 700 vehicle-movements on the public road system in the inner area. Investigation at London Airport has shown that passenger traffic represents only a small percentage of the total; assuming the percentage ol passenger vehicles to be as high as 30, the main-road system may be called upon to handle up to 2,300 vehicles per hour. This figure, however, could be considerably reduced by replacing private car traffic by bus services A further study was also carried out to assess the number o! vehicles required in the interim terminal scheme, the results ot which wete that a total of 85 vehiefes would be required to attend the 30 aircraft using the 15 stands which the scheme provided. The figure of 85 vehicles would be achieved only by carrying out all apron services by means ot a central pool of vehicles It is recommended that the final building design for the interim scheme be such as to provide adequate space for such parking as is necessary with the use of a central- pool system. : Passenger Handling A further aspect of ground-traffic organization at a large airport, that of passenger handling, was also investi- gated to determine the scale upon which handling-buildings would have to be provided in order to accommodate peak movement-rates ot aircraft. The general conception of handling-buildings in the past has been the provision of the necessary controls in one large building, the size of which was adjusted in accordance with the number of passengers likely to use it. In recent years, however, a move has been made towards tackling the problem from the point of view of the number of individual loads to be handled, and, there- fore, the establishment of small sub-sections or channels, each channel being completely equipped and staffed with all the necessary controls. Thus the size of the building depends upon the number of channels necessary to handle a specific movement rate and the size of each channel can be assessed on the basis of the number of passengers per aircraft The purpose of the study was to assess the number of channels required and three ways of using them were investigated: — (i) It was assumed that a road system existed along the* front of the buildings, so that any aircraft load could be- taken to any channel in either of the two handling-building' provided on each face. (ii) Each inner stand was assumed to be served by a chan- nel opening directly from it and loads from or to the outer stands were brought to any available channel in either building (iii) In addition to the inner stand being served by a chan nel opening directly from it, a separate set of channels was provided to handle outer-bay traffic; these were placed in that part of the buildings nearest the exits from the vehicle tunnels leading from the outer bays. Two methods of subdividing the channels were considered. In the first, the controls were assumed to be divided into three equal parts containing the three controls required, Health, Immigration and Customs. It was then assumed that a second load could not be fed into a channel until the pre- vious load. had cleared the Health control (in the case of arriving loads) and Customs control (departing) Observa- tions have shown, however, that the Health control is passed more quickly than Immigration. Thus, to avoid congestion and to match the handling times required by all three sections, a considerable increase in staff and space would be required i;i both Immigration and Customs. The method was therefore abandoned. In the second case, Health and Immigration controls were considered as a unit from the point of view of time, and the period in which a load was occupied with these two controls was assumed to be matched with the times spent in Customs; thus a second load was not fed into the channel until the previous load was (a) cleared by Health and Immigration or (b) clear of Customs, in the case of arrivals and departures respectively. Four channels were assumed to be provided initially'in each building—in other words, eight channels per. face or one per inner stand. (The number was increased when it became apparent that it was not adequate.) The " land- side '' waiting room was assumed to be common to all channels, but "apron-side" waiting rooms were assumed tc be individual to each channel. The following assumptions were also made in respect of times spent in the various controls: — Departure Loads min From "coach arrival" to "clear of Customs" .. 10From Immigration to " complete t load in apron-sidewaiting room" .. ..." .. .. ..10 (Present practice is for coaches to airive at the building 30 ininbefore the aircraft is due to leave.) - -•• - Arrival Loads From ' apron-side waiting room " to " Health and - .'Immigration completed" .. .. .. .. 15 ' ' Customs to " complete load in lanVI-side waitingroom" . .. . .. .. .. .. 15 The study was carried out on the same basis as the vehicle- movement studies, i.e., on the assumption that 27 aircraft used the 16 bays on this face in the peak hour under con- sideration. Average number of passengers per load was assumed to be 30. . The results of the study were found to be that the 27 air- craft using the stands in the hour constituted 31 potential movements of passenger loads, four aircraft being turned round within the hour. The maximum number of loads handled simultaneously was 16 (equivalent to 480 passengers). It was found that seven channels per building, or 14 per face, were necessary under each of the three previously mentioned methods of directing the loads to the buildings. The average utilization per channel was 46 min. Even at the peak moment in the hour (when 16 loads were being handled) only three channels were fully engaged. It was concluded that this fact demonstrated that, with mobility of staff in the buildings, full staffing would not be required for all channels simultaneously. The figure of four channels per building used initially in the study was con- sidered inadequate, because allowance must be made for the reverse use of some channels during the hour; aircraft turning round within the hour also increased the number of channels required as the incoming and outgoing loads must be going through the handling-buildings simultaneously. A comparison of the three means of using the channels showed that, by method (ii), inner-stand traffic could be handled very satisfactorily; for "turn-round" aircraft the channel adjacent to that opposite the aircraft was used for the second load. The selection of channels for outer-stand traffic waj^ found to be quite flexible. A similar study was also carried out on the N.W. (long- haul) face, where 22 aircraft loads were handled in the hour. In this case the times for both departing and arriving loads were assumed to be Customs, 15 minutes; Health and Immigra- tion, 15 minutes. It was found that method (i) required seven channels in all, with an average utilization per channel of 58 minutes. Method (ii) required eight channels—four in each building or one for each inner stand. All loads from the outer stand could be accommodated in these channels, and the average utilization per channel was 51 min. In this study it was concluded that the high utilization factor of 58 min with method (i) was unobtainable normally, because congestion would frequently occur. It was therefore estimated that eight channels per face is a fairer estimate of the requirements. As on the short-haul face, however, it was proved that method (ii) was the more attractive. On the long-haul face, also, the outer stands were legs used, and decrease in the stand occupancy time on this face could make the loading and unloading, from aircraft not requiring 3oolt stands, possible in the inner stands—with the outer ones available for parking aircraft. Mathematical Treatment.—Extensive ' time-and-motion studies are now being carried out both at London and Northolt airports to determine whether handling times are approximate "to those assumed in the study, to provide a basis for working out a mathematical theory on congestion in the present build ings, and to provide data for detailed design of future handling-
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
