THENA - THEmatic Network on Airport Activities
Overview
Background & policy context:
Air passenger transport in Europe has risen significantly, causing an increase in departures in major European domestic and regional markets, which in return produced its effects on the airport's capacity. In order to provide solutions for the current situation, a substantial number of research activities in all relevant areas have been launched, both at national and European levels. Within this framework, it is essential to create and develop a co-ordination and collaboration environment for airport activities in order to gain transparency and effectiveness in the development of the projects.
Objectives:
The main objective of the THEmatic Network on Airport Activities (THENA) is to create and develop a coordination and collaboration environment for airport activities in order to gain transparency and effectiveness in the development of projects related to this issue.
THENA aims at providing a focal point for collaboration between the different programmes where the stakeholders involved in airport operations will have the chance to meet and exchange opinions and points of view. This outcome will contribute substantially and effectively to the improvement of coordination and the avoidance of redundancy between completed and ongoing projects in the airport domain. In addition, some recommendations are inferred from the conferences organised and from the analysis done by the consortium.
Specifically, the THENA main objectives are to:
- Provide a focal point for collaboration between the different programmes where the ATM stakeholders can meet and exchange views on airport activities.
- Ensure that the exchange of information on airport activities is conducted efficiently and effectively, in order to avoid internal redundancy (disruptive overlapping) of work and help concentrate on straightforward objectives for each of the already running or future projects, related to both airside and landside airport operations.
- Explore issues not yet covered by the R&D projects and propose recommendations for new R&D projects and/or on the need for complementary standardisation activities that could foster a potential industrial application.
Methodology:
To achieve these objectives, THENA was organised and implemented around the major airport issues and most challenging research areas pertaining to the airport domain studies and decision making needs. These areas relate to:
- Capacity and Efficiency,
- Safety,
- Policy and Regulations,
- Simulation and Modelling,
- Information Systems / Technologies, and
- Environmental Impacts.
This allowed consortium members to tackle the issues and research fields according to their expertise and experience, thus greatly facilitating co-ordination, achievement of research synergies, and harmonised integration of results. The partnership of the THENA Consortium consists of 14 partners from 6 countries (see the contacts tab). It includes the air service providers Aena and DFS (the former also manages airports), the aerospace research institutes NLR and Onera, the Athens University of Economics and Business (Transportation Systems and Logistics Laboratory) and the University of Padova (Department of Pure and Applied Mathematics), the manufacturer of ATC and airport systems THALES ATM, the economic institute NEI, the transport consultants Ineco, Isdefe, Fedespace (non-profit organisation) and Slot Consulting, and the airlines Transavia (partially) and Martinair. The partners largely cover the range of skills required to perform the work of the project.
The organisational approach followed to reach the objectives of the project was threefold:
- Organisation of six working groups on the identified subject areas, which were identified as most important in the airport domain. These working groups allowed sharing and disseminating information and, most importantly, identifying research voids and gaps as directions for future and fertile research fields.
- Organisation of three dissemination workshops where, independent of the members of the consortium, appropriate experts presented different subjects related to the airport field. All the participants were invited to actively participate in the discussions which took place during the workshops in order to improve information dissemination.
- Design a web site where it will be possible to find all the information related to airport projects, together with the results from the different working groups and workshops (documents, working papers, agendas for future meetings and so on). Moreover, this web site allows a day-to-day exchange of data among all the inv
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