The 1990s saw a rapid growth in demand and consequently in congestion at Europe's airports, and aviation traffic is expected to double in the next 15 years. This pressure has in turn spurred increased research aimed at maintaining or improving capacity, efficiency and safety. Because the airport industry is fragmented across Europe into individual competitive commercial concerns, lessons are being learnt and experience is being gained which is not published to a wide audience, not discussed openly, and not made available for others to either learn from or develop further. Through OPTAS B and other initiatives, the European Commission intends to draw all this valuable work into the public domain for open discussion and dissemination.