Air traffic management automation in France

Abstract

France has a long experience in Air traffic management (ATM) automation, and has been developing a unique integrated system for 5 en route centers, 1 world class airports and more than 20 other international airports. Air traffic management (ATM) automation started in France in the mid sixties. After rapid progress, the introduction of new functionalities has considerably slowed down since the mid seventies. The resources were then devoted to its consolidation and expansion, taking advantage of the progress in computer and man machine interface technologies. These refinements sustained the traffic growth although they did not considerably increase the capacity at the controller working position level itself. For future the automation will keep the controller in the loop and first will look for increasing safety, providing, as a consequence, an increase of efficiency (and capacity) of the controller work. It is the aim of the ERATO project. More effort will be dedicated to TMA and airports. Air ground data link and airborne separation assurance technologies are also actively investigated in a European framework and could be introduced in the medium/long term. Air traffic management in France It may be useful to sum up some global characteristics of air traffic management (ATM) in France. The number of IFR controlled flights has grown from 1100.000 in 1985 to 2.500.000 in year 2000. Copyright 2001 by Direction Generale de 1'Aviation Civile Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, inc, with permission. At Charles de Gaulle airport (one of the two main Paris airports) the traffic has grown from 200.000 IFR flight in 1990 to 500.000 in 2000 Domestics flights represent 25% of the flights, over flights and international flights represent 37,.5% each. The airspace is controller by 5 en-route Centres, that handle between 700.000 and 1.200.000 IFR movements each. Paris TMA is quite busy with two main airports (Charles de Gaulle and Orly) and handled around 800.000 IFR movements in 2000. The north east of France is part of what is called the core area, ie the part of Europe where traffic density is the highest, with major airports such as Paris, London, Frankfort and Amsterdam in close vicinity. Air traffic flow management is centralised at the European level with the operation since 1995 of the CFMU (central flow management unit) If safety is not considered as a major threat for airborne flights in the immediate future, delay is the main problem to be solved, 1999 being the worst year. The automation steps in France Automation in ATM started in France in the sixties with the use of the first generation of computers . The PHASE 1 of automation called CAUTRA 1 was just printing strips at Paris center in a centralized way. In the mid sixties a second generation was introduced : the CAUTRA 2 system. It was implemented in Paris center. It was printing strips for Paris, Bordeaux and Marseilles centers, and, in the Paris center, inter-sector coordination was introduced, as well as strip printing on the control position , digital radar data processing (mono radar American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 1st AIAA Aircraft, Technology, Integration, and Operations Forum Los Angeles, CA Oct. 16-18,2001 (c)2001 American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics or Published with Permission of Author(s) and/or Author(s)' Sponsoring Organization.