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| Geospatial technologies are making airports more efficient  In today's always-connected digital world, we take for granted being able to access troves of information about almost anything from almost anywhere. Increasingly, the concept that matters most is not what we are looking for or how we are connected to the grid, but that our devices always know exactly where we are. Coffee? We quickly access a list of the highest-rated establishments within a mile of where we are standing. Traffic? Our phones tell us where to turn to find a less congested route. This paradigm-shifting concept is called geolocation, and airports are employing it and other geospatial technologies to improve the way they do business.United States airports are required to inspect their facilities multiple times a day to ensure that the lights, signs, marking, pavement and other critical assets are in good working condition. Under the U.S Code of Federal Regulations, Part 139, airports that fail to comply risk losing their operating certificate. At General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, paper forms and radio calls had long formed the backbone of airport operations and maintenance, as they still do at many airports today. By equipping airport inspectors with mobile devices in the field, General Mitchell now enables inspectors to electronically mark the precise location of any abnormal condition they find. No radio call is required, nor a trip back to the office to fill out a paper form. Maintenance teams respond using the same mobile tools and can quickly find the pavement crack, broken airfield light, or missing sign that, if left uncorrected, could ultimately affect airport safety. Oftentimes in Milwaukee the item noted by the airport inspector is blanketed with six inches of snow, and without spatial data crews could literally spend hours locating and fixing the problem. Tim Pearson, General Mitchell International Airport's GIS Coordinator, says, "Using geospatially-enabled mobile devices in the field for inspection and work orders has made everyone more efficient – from inspectors to maintenance to management. Everyone is on the same page all the time. We know exactly where work needs to be performed, and we generate no paper." Property management systems have been used for years at airports to track tenants and leases. Today, airports are using geospatial technology to turn these stuffy data warehouses into real-time sources of critical operating information. Have a security problem somewhere in the terminal? A few mouse clicks on a geospatial system, and airports like General Mitchell can generate a list of nearby tenants and their contact information to spread the word quickly. Airports are not just places where airplanes land and take off. They are micro economies that support their existence by leasing property and charging fees for parking. They are highly secure facilities that enforce a perimeter and plan ways in which to manage threats. They are passenger terminals that move millions of people in well-choreographed flows every year. And they are applying geospatial technologies to improve all of these functions. "The next steps for Mitchell Airport include integrating geospatial technology with vehicle tracking, parking management, and lease management" says Pearson. "What we've done so far is the first step in a long process of making geospatial technologies an essential part of improving airport management." -Kevin Carlson, associate vice president, AECOM write your comments about the article :: © 2013 Construction News :: home page |