Heathrow Airport Research Articles

The urban heat island in Central London and urban‐related warming trends in Central London since 1900

Cities create their own microclimates and their sites are almost always warmer, compared to a nearby rural location, than if the city were not there. The effect on temperatures measured in the city has been termed the ‘urban heat island’ (UHI). In this study we assess the strength of the UHI within and around London based on monthly and seasonal maximum, mean and minimum temperatures. The purpose of the study is not to look at UHI extremes on individually conducive days, but to show that the effect has a certain magnitude on monthly and seasonal averages, and assess whether this magnitude of UHI for Central London has increased over the twentieth century compared to rural locations around London (Jones et al., 2008). London is possibly the longest-studied UHI of any city; Luke Howard (1833) was probably the first scientist to suggest that the temperature recorded in a city was likely to be higher than that in the surrounding countryside. The major studies of urbanrelated warming in London since then have all recognized the importance of homogeneous temperature series and the need to look at long time series, as opposed to the effects on individual days or short periods. Moffitt (1972) compared the long Kew (KEW) record with that from Rothamsted (ROTH), remarking that this rural site is unlikely to be affected by any development at Harpenden (a mile to the northeast of the site). A study was conducted (in 1925) concerning a site move that took place in 1915. Although the study is no longer available, a letter in the station metadata files states that there was good agreement between readings at the two sites and that there was no regular pattern in the minor variations (Moffitt, 1972). Some additional discussion of this site move is given by Tyrrell (1972) and Moffitt (1973). ROTH is used as one of the three key sites in England for the Central England Temperature (CET) series, and no adjustments to its data have been made (Parker et al., 1992). Moffitt (1972) concluded that KEW warmed relative to ROTH between 1878 and 1968 by about 0.8 degC, slightly more in winter and summer and slightly less in spring and autumn. Moffitt (1972) also showed that KEW (for annual average temperature) was warmer than ROTH in the 1880s by 0.74 degC, which agreed well with the height difference (123 metres) between the stations, assuming a standard lapse rate of 0.6 degC per 100 metres. This value will be important later when we assess the magnitude of Central London’s UHI. We will also assess whether this value should be applied equally to maximum and minimum temperatures. Later work by Lee (1992) and Wilby (2003) used the more central London site of St James’s Park (SJP) and replaced the ROTH rural record with Wisley (WIS). The periods of record were reduced to 1962–1989 and 1958–1998, respectively, and the emphasis changed to the magnitude of UHI. Lee (1992) considered whether the urbanrelated warming trend had increased over his period of analysis, but was only able to find that minimum temperatures had risen while maxima decreased at SJP compared to WIS with no overall change in mean temperatures. Wilby (2003) found similar results to Lee (1992) and correlated counts of daily extreme UHI values (SJP warmer than WIS by more than 4 degC) against a number of synoptic indices. In this study we will use an additional site in Central London (London Weather Centre, LWC) and one in a more suburban location (Heathrow Airport, LHR), and use the full length of digitally available daily and monthly average records.

New Battery Model and State-of-Health Determination Through Subspace Parameter Estimation and State-Observer Techniques

This paper describes a novel adaptive battery model based on a remapped variant of the well-known Randles' lead-acid model. Remapping of the model is shown to allow improved modeling capabilities and accurate estimates of dynamic circuit parameters when used with subspace parameter-estimation techniques. The performance of the proposed methodology is demonstrated by application to batteries for an all-electric personal rapid transit vehicle from the urban light transport (ULTRA) program, which is designated for use at Heathrow Airport, U.K. The advantages of the proposed model over the Randles' circuit are demonstrated by comparisons with alternative observer/estimator techniques, such as the basic Utkin observer and the Kalman estimator. These techniques correctly identify and converge on voltages associated with the battery state-of-charge (SoC), despite erroneous initial conditions, thereby overcoming problems attributed to SoC drift (incurred by Coulomb-counting methods due to overcharging or ambient temperature fluctuations). Observation of these voltages, as well as online monitoring of the degradation of the estimated dynamic model parameters, allows battery aging (state-of-health) to also be assessed and, thereby, cell failure to be predicted. Due to the adaptive nature of the proposed algorithms, the techniques are suitable for applications over a wide range of operating environments, including large ambient temperature variations. Moreover, alternative battery topologies may also be accommodated by the automatic adjustment of the underlying state-space models used in both the parameter-estimation and observer/estimator stages.

The Carbon Casino

AbstractRichard Bevan re‐imagines Heathrow Airport four decades on in 2050. In an age where Personal Carbon Allowances (PCAs) have become the dominant currency, the facilities at Heathrow are turned over to a carbon casino that affords airside and landside customers the opportunities to participate in gambling with the relevant tax breaks applied. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An examination of take-off scheduling constraints at London Heathrow airport

In this paper, we focus upon the departure system for London Heathrow airport, one of the busiest airports in the world. Decreasing the delay for aircraft awaiting take-off with their engines running would decrease fuel usage and have consequent cost and pollution benefits. We explain how the departure system at Heathrow currently works and we describe the various constraints that apply to take-off schedules. A model for the take-off order problem is presented from the point of view of the runway controller, the person who is responsible for the take-off scheduling. We investigate the effects of each constraint and combination of constraints, using a simulation of the Heathrow departure system. The role of the runway controller in the simulation is performed by a search which was designed to form the basis of an online decision support system. Both the simulation and the decision support system are fully described. We use the results to evaluate the effect upon delay that we would expect from various changes that could be made to the departure system. We end the paper by drawing conclusions about the predicted effectiveness of different changes that could be made to the departure system and focus upon a further opportunity for decision support research.

The EU-US ‘Open Skies’ Agreement: Managing long-term capacity at London Heathrow Airport

The EU-US ‘Open Skies’ agreement has liberalised the North Atlantic air transport market between the EU and USA. The agreement has effectively licensed the airlines already operating in the market to increase flight frequencies on existing routes, open new ones and also diversify airfares. In addition, the market has been opened to new entrants, particularly long-distance ‘low-cost’ airlines, which will likely follow their predecessor from the 1970s — Sir Freddie Laker's Skytrain. Such traffic growth will have to be accommodated at both EU and US airports. This paper considers the long-term management of airside and landside capacity at London Heathrow Airport, the largest of the five London airports and the most significant on the European side of the EU-US air transport market. The paper considers the prediction of airport demand in terms of the annual number of air transport movements and passenger volumes; elaborates some alternative solutions for providing sufficient airside and landside capacity; and generates scenarios for the long-term matching of these solutions with the predicted demand. The results suggest reasonable solutions for the long-term management of airport capacity to meet the predicted demand (ie until 2030), while keeping noise and air pollution within the prescribed limits.

A tentative analysis of the impacts of an airport closure

This paper identifies the vulnerabilities of operations at Heathrow airport to a short airport closure. The system disruptions assessed are delays, flight rerouting or diversions to alternate airports, and flight cancellations. In addition, the impact on fuel consumption, and hence CO 2 emissions, is quantified using the Reorganized Air Traffic Control Mathematical Simulator Plus simulation model and the Advanced Emission Model tool. The results have implications for assessing how increased severe weather events associated with climate change may disrupt airport operations.

Determination of aerosol optical thickness through the derivation of an atmospheric correction for short-wavelength Landsat TM and ASTER image data: an application to areas located in the vicinity of airports at UK and Cyprus

Aerosol optical thickness is considered to be the most important unknown parameter of every atmospheric correction approach for removing atmospheric effects from satellite remotely sensed images. This study presents a description of the basics of the proposed atmospheric correction procedure, which combines the darkest object subtraction principle and the radiative transfer equations. The method considers the true reflectance values of the selected dark targets acquired in situ and the atmospheric parameters such as the aerosol single scattering phase function, single scattering albedo and water vapour absorption, which are also found from ground measurements. The proposed procedure is applicable to short wavelengths such as Landsat TM band 1, 2 and ASTER band 1 in which water vapour absorption is negligible. The proposed image processing method has been tested successfully to determine the aerosol optical thickness on Landsat-5/TM images of the Lower Thames Valley area located to West London (UK) in the vicinity of Heathrow Airport and to Landsat TM/ETM+ and ASTER images of an area located in the vicinity of Paphos International Airport (Cyprus). The determined aerosol optical thicknesses for the Heathrow Airport area were 0.60, 013 and 0.75 for the Landsat TM images (0.45–0.52 µm) acquired on 17th of May 1985, 2nd of June 1985 and 4th of July 1985. The determined aerosol optical thicknesses for the ASTER (0.52–0.60 µm) images acquired on the 4th of February 2008, 26th of February 2008, 17th of December and 24th of December 2007 were 0.18, 0.39, 0.49 and 0.90, respectively. The accuracy assessment applied using the in situ spectroradiometric and sun-photometer data during the satellite overpass acquired on July–August 2008 for the Paphos area in Cyprus shows satisfactory results both for removing the atmospheric effects and for determining the aerosol optical thickness. Indeed, the high correlation between the determined aerosol optical thickness and those extracted from the visibility values increases the potential of the proposed method.

Project Safeguards: Operationalizing Option-Like Strategic Thinking in Infrastructure Development

When business strategists use option-like thinking to inform investments in physical infrastructure, developers need to operationalize leaving the options open at project implementation. This study defines safeguard as the design and physical development work for ensuring, or enhancing, the embedment of an option in the project outcome. Safeguards account for design changes stemming from option exercising if the environmental uncertainties resolve favorably in the future. They range from a design effort to secure space in a master plan (passive) to the construction of an integral component (active). A multiple-case study on the expansion of Heathrow airport shows how the confluence of two contingencies underscores decisions to safeguard under a limited budget. Safeguarding is more attractive when: 1) the assumed uncertainty that the option will get in the money is low because the outlay sunk on safeguards is more likely to pay off; and 2) the infrastructure architecture is modular because only the interfaces between components may require safeguarding. Irreversible investments on safeguards increase the option cost and reduce the exercising costs in the future. Safeguards therefore play out as a control point for strategic option-like thinking at project implementation. The empirical findings are summarized in a conceptual framework.

Aerosol optical thickness (AOT) retrieval over land using satellite image-based algorithm

The aim of this study is to present and apply the proposed algorithm on archived time series Landsat TM over an urban area in the vicinity of Heathrow Airport (UK) acquired in 1984-1986 and to two up-to-dated Landsat TM images in the vicinity of Paphos Airport in Cyprus acquired in July-August 2008. The monitoring of aerosol concen- trations becomes a high environmental priority particularly in urban areas. The proposed algorithm has been developed to allow the quantification of the aerosol optical thickness (AOT) over land. The algorithm compares multitemporal satellite data sets and evaluates radiometric alterations due to the optical atmospheric effects of aerosols. Novel features of this algorithm which is based on the application of radiative transfer calculations are the inclusion of applying iteration procedures for selecting the suitable object for determining the aerosol optical thickness and the automatic division into working grid cells. AOT retrieval from Landsat TM band 1 images of Cyprus has been cross- validated satisfactorily by comparing AOT values found from handheld MICROTOPS II sun photometer.

Cocaine ‘body packers’ and the clinical management of packet rupture

A 43-year-old Afro-Caribbean man was behaving oddly in the arrivals lounge at London Heathrow Airport. He was agitated, sweating profusely and disorientated. Urinalysis was positive for cocaine, and he was transferred to the local accident and emergency department. On arrival, he was hyperactive, tachycardic (rate 140/min), hypertensive (blood pressure 235/140 mmHg) and agitated. A plain abdominal radiograph identified multiple, well-defined objects throughout the gastrointestinal tract (Figure 1) with no evidence of bowel obstruction. Whole bowel irrigation with polyethylene glycol (2 litres/hour orally) was started. The patient remained agitated and hypertensive despite aggressive medical treatment for cocaine toxicity using intravenous diazepam (total 45 mg intravenously over 2 hours) and glyceryl trinitrate (maximum infusion rate 8 mg/hr). Following surgical consultation, it was decided to perform a laparotomy (Figures 2a and b). In total, 89 packets of cocaine were surgically removed from the stomach, small and large bowel (Figure 2c), with an estimated street value of £50 000–100 000 depending on purity. Postoperatively the patient made an uneventful recovery.

CONSTRUCTED WETLAND CONTROL OF BOD LEVELS IN AIRPORT RUNOFF

A surface water treatment system consisting of an aeration reservoir and pond (holding capacities 45,000 and 19,000 m3) and a network of 12 horizontal subsurface flow gravel-filled constructed wetland cells of different sizes (total surface area 2.08 ha) and planted with Phragmites australis, was commissioned at Heathrow Airport, London, United Kingdom, in the winter of 2002. Ongoing monitoring of the treatment system has shown significant reductions in the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) throughout the system with levels decreasing by up to 76.7% across the constructed wetland cells following high anti- and de-icing fluid applications. However, continued exposure to BOD5 concentrations exceeding the design target has resulted in anaerobic conditions in the wetland. The addition of nutrients to the treatment system has resulted in improved removal efficiency for elevated BOD5 loadings in the aerated reservoir from 25.5% to 47.5%, The addition of different nutrient dosing regimes to complementary pilot-scale planted and unplanted vertical flow columns showed average but statistically insignificant BOD5 removal percentage increases from 61.9 ± 21.1% to 70.8 ± 26.5%, respectively, in planted columns over a 7-day period. There is an overall improvement in the performance of the system, but operational reviews are continuing.

Factors Affecting the Frequency and Severity of Airport Weather Delays and the Implications of Climate Change for Future Delays

This paper evaluates the impact of changing weather on air transportation operations over the coming 50 years by using London's Heathrow Airport as a case study. The weather parameters associated with weather-related delays at Heathrow are first identified, and statistical models for the occurrence and the severity of weather-related delay events are then presented. Thunderstorms, snow, and fog are found to increase the chance of weather-related delay by more than 25%, whereas an increase in wind speed of 1 knot above the mean increases the probability of delay by 8%. The severity of delay can be classified correctly in 84% of cases by using nine weather predictors. These statistical models are then used in conjunction with climate forecast data to estimate future weather-related delays. Seven climate models were used to calculate changes in weather parameters in the 2050s for three emissions scenarios. The climate model outputs limit the range of weather parameters that can be forecast; for those that cannot be included in the model, a qualitative assessment of their potential impact on airport delay is provided.

Demonstration of Advanced Transport Applications in CityMobil Project

CityMobil is an integrated project in the sixth Framework Programme of the European Union. The objective of the project is to achieve a more effective organization of urban transport, resulting in a more rational use of motorized traffic with less congestion and pollution, safer driving, a higher quality of living, and enhanced integration with spatial development. Subproject 1 of CityMobil focuses on demonstration activities with the objective of demonstrating the feasibility of innovative and advanced urban transport solutions and to evaluate the systems according to their impact. Three large-scale demonstrations were carried out. At Heathrow Airport in London, a personal rapid transit system connects the car park to the new terminal building. In Rome, cybercars collect visitors from the car park and bring them to the entrance of the city's new exhibition buildings. In Castellón, Spain, an autonomous guided bus links the university with the city center and the seaside. Other activities (so-called small demonstrations and showcases) are carried out in the framework of the CityMobil project. These additional activities are intended to raise awareness in European cities of innovative forms of urban transportation based on cybercars and advanced city vehicles.

Innovation in Megaprojects: Systems Integration at London Heathrow Terminal 5

Megaprojects require investment of $1bn or more to build infrastructure, usually involving a complex system of production consisting of discrete, routine, and highvolume repetitive processes. Many of these processes can be progressively standardized and replicated to improve overall productive performance. This article presents the findings of research on design and production of London's Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 (T5). The findings were used to develop a conceptual framework—which we call the systems integration model—to identify the project and operational processes that contribute to success in delivering megaprojects. The systems integrator is the lead organization in a megaproject, responsible for establishing a governance structure, managing risk, and coordinating processes performed by a large network of external suppliers. Innovations based on the recombination and replication of processes can be introduced to improve megaproject performance.

Developing Cooperative Project Client-Supplier Relationships: How Much to Expect from Relational Contracts?

In recent years, infrastructure promoters have become interested in translating the Toyota lean management paradigm into new infrastructure development projects. This approach assumes client and project suppliers are willing to work cooperatively. To enable this prerequisite, clients have started to experiment with relational contracts. An empirical study on the use of a relational contract in the £4.2bn extension of Heathrow airport in London confirms, however, the old adage that the devil is in the details. Unarguably, relational contracts enable the project client and suppliers to work together for a common purpose. However, the interwoven ways in which the client implements the contract—writing up the commercial details, as well as adjusting and interpreting these details throughout the project—are critical to encourage the suppliers to work cooperatively and meet the expectations of the client. This study unpacks five factors for making relational contracts work in projects: suppliers are keen to reap reputation benefits from project participation; suppliers have flexibility in their production processes; client and suppliers choose the right people for the jobs; client learns to relationally contract in response to supplier feedback; and client aligns its practices to control and improve performance with the suppliers' skills.

Popper, panic and the Perhapsatron: arguments for small science

It is difficult to improve upon Karl Popper’s description of the pace and difficulty of technological progress, and its twin dependence on invention and discovery, when he said (Bondi 1992): ‘We advance like a person walking through a swamp, first painfully on one leg and advancing it, and then on the other. One leg is labelled ‘technology’ and the other ‘science’’. Popper’s words came to mind (with several other thoughts!) when, in the space of a few days, I read about the difficulties in international efforts to develop fusion energy generation (Brumfiel 2008a; Clery 2008a, 2008b; Editorial 2008), a call from a UK academic funding agency for suggested long-term (20–40 years) challenges (EPSRC 2008) and an article that appeared in the UK newspaper, The Guardian, on 1 August, (Simms 2008a) with the headline ‘The final countdown’. The Guardian article was promoted with the apocalyptic message that we have just ‘100 months to save the world’. The ‘100 months’ is the time the authors, a ‘group of global warming experts’, suggest it will take for the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere [actually, CO2e, a calculated carbon dioxide equivalent (Simms 2008b)] to reach the ‘tipping point’, beyond which ‘potentially’ irreversible changes will occur in the climate system. I am not a climate scientist or even a global warming expert (with or without inverted commas). However, I wonder what the contributors to the 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose data are the basis of the calculation, make of the precision of this estimate and the failure to provide measures of the associated uncertainty. Nor is there any discussion of the different probabilities of irreversible effects arising from exceeding the critical CO2 concentration for 5, 50 or 500 years, before bringing it back below this level. For a better argued pair of (different!) perspectives on the climate change debate, the reader could do much worse than read James Lovelock’s polemic, ‘Revenge of Gaia’ (Lovelock 2006) and Bjorn Lomborg’s ‘Cool It’ (Lomborg 2007). The Guardian article is typical of those that use science to underpin scary scenarios about climate change to catch public attention. From a reading of the 431 subsequent comments on the Guardian website (Guardian 2008) few minds have been changed. Indeed, the 100 month estimate seems to have been received with derision in some quarters and could deflect attention away from the more serious points the authors seek to make. The authors, from the New Economics Foundation, suggest that resource use should be cut, by ‘re-engineering’ the UK economy along the austerity and command lines of the Second World War. They believe that the UK government should unilaterally set an example by not permitting the building of the third runway at London’s Heathrow airport nor the new coal-fired power station in the county of Kent. They also believe that developing countries would then follow this example. Perhaps significantly, the article failed to make any mention at all of the availability of a developed, effective and readily deployable alternative technology, namely nuclear fission, that might aid the controlling of anthropogenic CO2 emissions as part of the transition to more sustainable energy-generating technologies. Nor, following the logic of the 100 month argument, was there any call to divert funding away from fusion research, whose development into a workable and deployed technology is only likely to appear in 3–400 months, if then, long after the supposed ‘tipping point’. This set me thinking about the N. Winterton (&) Department of Chemistry, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZD, UK e-mail: N.Winterton@liverpool.ac.uk

The future is boring: stories from the landscapes of the mobile telecoms industry

This paper weaves two stories of the future in the mobile telecoms industry, attentive to what is rehearsed and what is made absent. It follows the concerns of social studies of science and technology, in which futures and practices of future-making are always embodied and epistemologically situated; the future as a social and material activity of knowledge-making. The paper draws on a four-month ethnography of the mobile telecoms industry but enacts two different methods: the first method is a reflective critique of the future in the industry; the second is a generative and inventive interference. The first method weaves a story around the lines of movement near London Heathrow Airport, creating a linear, universal, and fixed future. The second method weaves a story around the island archipelago of Orkney in Scotland to make a mutable, local, and fluid future. In this paper landscapes and futures are inseparable.

Symptomatic travel associated pulmonary embolism: high severity does not imply poor long term prognosis

As air travel has become increasingly popular during the last two decades, the death of a 27-year-old woman in the Arrivals Hall at Heathrow Airport after a 20 h flight triggered an important number of medical investigations that aimed to clarify the epidemiology, physiopathology, and associated risk factors of the so-called ‘economy class syndrome’ in order to support the evaluation of preventive strategies. Indeed, given the large number of people travelling long distances around the world, strategies intended for travel-associated venous thrombo-embolism (VTE) prevention must reach a high level of scientific quality, demonstrating safety and high effecacy. Therefore, such strategies should primarily focus on those patients with the highest risk of serious adverse outcomes associated with travel-related VTE. Unfortunately, despite a large amount of medical literature, several important features related to this issue remain under debate, and preventive strategies are still poorly documented, and mostly based on general precautions that might be helpful and harmless in preventing deep vein thrombosis (DVT).1–3 Therefore, there is a great interest in identifying those patients with the highest risk of developing travel-associated VTE, namely those presenting with symptomatic pulmonary embolism (PE). Indeed, the risk to travellers has to be balanced against potential adverse events associated with more aggressive preventive strategies such as low molecular weight heparin. In this perspective, the study published by Lehmann et al. 4 has original features that have added important insights to our knowledge of travel-associated symptomatic PE, which is the most threatening and therefore the most clinically relevant category of VTE. The authors compared clinical characteristics and the long-term prognosis of two groups of patients referred to hospital for the treatment of travel-associated or non-travel-associated PE. In 1856, Virchow first reported that … *Corresponding author. Tel: +33 1 49 81 25 23, Fax: +33 1 49 81 29 87, Email: bertrand.renaud{at}hmn.aphp.fr

On-line decision support for take-off runway scheduling with uncertain taxi times at London Heathrow airport

This paper addresses the challenge of building an automated decision support methodology to tackle the complex problem faced every day by runway controllers at London Heathrow Airport. Aircraft tax...

Imported rabies in a quarantine centre in the United Kingdom

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