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Airport planning
318
Airport Planning
AIRPORT PLANNING For a place in the future
environment
J. Block
There is so much at stake, economically and socially, in the building of an airport that forecasting studies and planning a long time in advance are of the greatest importance. Aircraft, airspace, airports and ground environment are parts of a system which must be analysed and planned together so as to anticipate the expanding requirements of human and freight transport.
WORLD commercial air traffic is now expanding exponentially at very high rates giving approximately a two-fold increase in every five years for passenger traffic and a two-fold increase in every four years for freight. The problems created by such a growth rhythm, particularly with regard to airport infrastructure, can be imagined, even though the number of aircraft journeys doubles only every eight years owing to the increase in the unit capacity of aircraft. Infra-structure is naturally difficult to develop, not only because of the property and administrative problems involved but also because it represents substantial investments which can only be written down over fairly long periods. Ten to fifteen years may be required between the first inclination to build a new major airport and its opening, quite simply because it is very difficult to find several thousands of hectares of almost virgin land not too far from the town to be served, on which it is possible to build at a reasonable cost and with which it is possible to associate the volume of airspace necessary for the regulation of traffic before landing and following take-off. Once this land is found, it is also important that local residents should not oppose the project for fear of noise or by making excessive claims as to the value of the land to be purchased. The examples of New York, which has been looking for a site for a fourth airport for years, and London which is looking for a site for a third, are good illustrations of this kind of difficulty. And although Paris is now lucky enough to be able to build the Roissy-en-France airport, the initial idea was expressed as early as 1957. Airport development must therefore be planned a very long time in advance, which is particularly difficult considering that aircraft manufacturers can launch a new model on the market within a few years-Boeing spoke for the M. Block is Director of Planning and Development, Paris Airport Authority. FUTURES
June 1969
Airport Planning
first time in 1965 of the Boeing 747 which will be put in service at the end of 1g6g-and airlines can mod+ their networks almost without any warning. When designing a major airport, it is necessary to allow on average for each passenger a year, I sq metre of land within the airport boundary, I sq metre severely affected by noise outside the boundary, and an investment of $30. An airport with a capacity of 30 million passengers a year like Roissy-en-France thus requires an area of 3000 hectares-ie a third of the area within the Paris town boundaries-imposes building restrictions over another 3000 hectares, and costs almost a $1000 million in its final development stage. So as to cope with up to 140 aircraft landings or take-offs in a peak hour, it also requires a corresponding capacity on the airways system; and there is the additional problem of a likely gooo vehicles an hour in one direction on its access roads, enough to saturate six motorway lanes. As well as this, direct employment will be created for 50,000 people and indirect employment for the same number. Thus 300,000 people will be supported by the airport, occupying IOO,OOOdwellings. It can be understood that planning errors on this can scarcely be remedied. It should also be noted however, that if air traffic were to go on doubling every five years and if airport areas required were to remain proportional to this traffic, the 550,000 sq km of French territory would be completely covered with airports in 75 years’ time. Accordingly, it must be recognised that either air traffic will not develp so quickly or techniques will change. It seems likely that it will be the techniques that will change. Prospects
for traffic growth
It must be noted that the aircraft has still made but very little headway in the transport market; it mainly tackles long distances-the average for the world as a whole is about 1,000 km-and it still takes only a minority of travellers with a high standard of living, or goods with a high specific value. In 1968 there were some 320 million journeys by air, and about 9,600 million tonne-kilometres of freight were carried. Even in advanced countries the proportion of air transport is still low; a study conducted in I 965 showed that only I o/oof the population of Western Europe used aircraft in that year, that air transport accounted for only 15% of intra-European travel beyond 500 km and almost no trips of under 300 km. Air freight is operating under similar conditions. Paris, for example, which is in third place after London and Frankfurt in this field, exports and imports goods by air that only represent o - 2% of French foreign trade in terms of tonnage. However, in terms of value, they represent 5% of French foreign trade, which indicates that air transport is still attracting goods of very high value only. These facts suggest that aviation will probably be able to go on developing its market substantially for a very long time to come. In the case of passengers, the continual rise in the standard of living, education and urbanisation and the constant progress of aviation in terms of costs, speed, comfort and safety are powerful factors in favour of air transport growth, and the importance which commercial aviation has assumed in the United States testifies to this.
FUTURES
June 1960
319
320
Airport Planning
NUMBER
OF AIR PASSENGERS
ON DOMESTIC per 1000 inhabitants
ROUTES
IN 1966
GDP per inhabitant($)
USA
500
3011
UK
106
1459
Germany
85
1750
France
36
1585
Italy
31
1045
Most traffic forecast models show that demand elasticity in air transport in relation to the rise in income or the decline in fares is around 2. Thus an annual increase in income of 4% plus a decline in fares of 2% would give a traffic increase of I 2%. If we add 2% for the increase in the urban population, we have a rate of 14%, or in other words, about a two-fold increase every five years. As for freight, the general picture is more favourable than is often thought. Users are just beginning to realise that although the aircraft costs more per tonne-kilometre, it permits savings on insurance, packaging, stocks and warehouses and makes it possible to meet demand much more rapidly. Some experts think that air freight might rapidly become a more important activity for airlines-in terms of tonne-kilometres-than passenger services.
The changes
in technique
It is not enough merely to see that the market exists; it must also be shown that the air transport techniques are good enough to develop the market, taking into account competition from rapid trains and ships. Here, air transport must be thought of as a whole, ie in terms of a ‘system’. It would be pointless to have improved aircraft if they could not move in airspace or land at airports. Similarly, it would be useless to have airports if they could not be operated because of noise or congestion of their surface access are therefore facilities. Aircraft, airspace, airports and ground environment parts of a system which must necessarily be analysed and planned together, otherwise the shortcomings in one area may disrupt the whole system. Something like this is in fact now happening in the north-east of the United States owing to the congestion of airspace. Thus the future of airports cannot be imagined without studying the future of the other parts of the system and trying to identify the bottlenecks that are likely to jeopardise development. With regard to co-ordinated planning, major effects are being made everywhere in the world to associate aircraft manufacturers, airlines, airport authorities and those responsible for town planning, more closely. True, there will be many problems, but a good start has been made and the solidarity of the interests involved may help to solve them. The trend towards increasing the capacity of conventional aircraft has the twofold effect of delaying airspace congestion and cutting operating costs, thus making it possible to meet demand as well as attracting new passengers. There seems to be no limit to this increase in aircraft size; weights of 700 metric tons, fuselage lengths of IOO metres and spans
FUTURES
June 1999
Airport Planning
of 85 metres are now conceivable and such aircraft will probably be available for freight before passenger traffic. As a result, difficulties may arise at airports with regard to the bearing strength of runways, the strength of bridges and the geometric dimensions of taxi-ways and aircraft loading stands. But these problems will not be insoluble if manufacturers increase the number of wheels on landing gear and ensure good aircraft manoeuvrability on the ground. The progress in engines and aerodynamics of conventional aircraft has ended the race to lengthen runways. Noise control has also entered an active phase; certification of the noise of aircraft is going to be imposed on manufacturers and initially this will represent a cut of about 10% in sound levels as compared with existing machines, which will be reduced still further with technical progress. Not all the noise problems around airports will be solved by this but certainly they will be alleviated, making it possible to guarantee that the increase in traffic will not worsen the present situation. Certain flight restrictions, particularly on night operations, may also be lifted, which is very important for the development of freight. Even more important for the future is the development of new, non-conventional aircraft. These are mainly supersonic (SST), short take-off and landing (STOL) and vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. The first will enable the very-long distance market to be developed by raising quality of service: covering 6,000 km in 2-3 hours instead of 7, or 10,000 in 5-6 hours instead of 12, has considerable appeal for anyone travelling frequently by air. SST’s create scarcely any particular problems at airports, apart from the probably high noise level owing to the power of the engines (thrust/weight ratio of 45% as against 25% for subsonic aircraft). STOL aircraft are at present undergoing a period of development which is justified for several reasons : l They enable the aircraft to be introduced in regions where it would be impossible to set up conventional airports either because the topography is unsuitable (mountains, islands, etc), or because there is not enough traffic to justify the cost (developing or desert countries). l They enable the use of airspace to be increased in very busy regions through their ability to operate outside conventional airways and landing and take-off paths (see tests with the Breguet 941 /McDonnell 188 in the north-east of the United States). l They are a good replacement for the helicopter on short routes because their operating costs are much lower. However, they require a bigger infra-structure than helicopters, which limits this advantage to favourable sites (for example, links between the New York and Washington airports and services for the Los Angeles region).
STOL aircraft will certainly facilitate the development of air transport by conquering new markets in regions with a difficult terrain, in virgin territory and on short routes. But in this last resort their operating cost, which is higher than the conventional aircraft’s, can only be offset if they permit a gain in time over competitive transport. This supposes that stolports can be located near traffic-generating centres. The shortness of the runways required (about
FUTURES
June 1999
321
322
Airport Ranning
450 metres long) may in fact permit their location nearer to urban areas than major conventional airports, but in many cases it will be impossible to accommodate them in the centre of towns. Only VTOL aircraft really appear as capable of taking over the shortdistance transport market for aviation. This is an important market as most journeys are over short distances. VTOL aircraft require only very small areas and are not demanding with regard to obstacles. The location of vertiports in the centre of cities-on the ground or on terraces--is therefore perfectly feasible provided the VTOL noise level is acceptable. This problem has not yet been solved, but prospects are good. Then there is the economic aspect: the helicopter has hardly been developed commercially because of its price, but future VTOL aircraft, whether derived from the helicopter or not, will be much less costly to operate. A study conducted on services by helicopter for the Paris region has already shown that if a heliport could be located in the centre of the business district the time saving compared with surface methods of travelling would justify the extra cost. There is no doubt that the breakthrough of economic and quiet VTOL aircraft, which is considered probable between 1980 and 1985, will be just as great a revolution in aviation as the advent ofjets in 1958, since these machines will be able to compete effectively on very-short, short and even medium distances. They will in fact be using a network of vertiports placed very near to the traffic generating centres and will thus solve the problem of economic penetration into the centre of towns, which the other transport methods cannot do. They will make possible rapid direct links between a large number of points, with limited expenses on infra-structure and reduced terminal delays, which will be particularly advantageous and necessary in the conurbations of the future. The optimum utilisation of airspace poses problems that the growth in the number of aircraft will make increasingly difficult. Fortunately, solutions can be considered through increasingly complete automation of control and improved accuracy in identifying the exact position of each aircraft, its path and its speed. Extension of such automation to landing systems wiil give the aircraft the main quality it is still lacking, namely regularity. Once this is provided, there will be a further reason for even more traffic growth. The automation of aircraft guidance on the ground will pose quite difficult problems at very big airports where the taxiway network will grow increasingly complex and become similar to a railway network on which several dozen machines may be moving at the same time. Airports
of the future
The problems the airports will have to overcome will be mainly traffic flow and financial; the aim will be to cope with a considerable amount of traffic at the least cost. It has already been shown that today’s area and investment ratios required per passenger are incompatible with the foreseeable development in traffic. But the technological mutation of aircraft will enable this contradiction to be partly overcome. The development of STOL and VTOL aircraft
FUTURES
June lS6#
Airport Planning
for short and medium distances, ie for go% at least of future air trips, will make it possible to replace giant airports which eat up space and money and whose very size creates increasingly insoluble problems for the neighbourhood, by a large number of small, inexpensive stolports and vertiports. Thus, to handle the foreseeable 600 million air passengers a year in the Paris region in the year 2000 (ie 60 times the present figure), will not require IO giant airports each handling a traffic of 60 million passengers a year, which would be impossible to build owing to the lack of suitable sites, but rather 200 vertiports and stolports whose area would range between o ‘5 and 200 hectares and each of which would serve a region with IOO,OOO inhabitants and account for an annual traffic of three million passengers a year, with about 100 aircraft movements a day, posing no noise, access, congestion or cost problems. One or two conventional long-runway airports will be sufficient for long-haul supersonic or hypersonic aircraft. Generally speaking, the way to reduce costs will be to specialise facilities as much as possible, so that they can be adapted to their functions with maximum output and minimum waste. The development of air freight will, in particular, make it possible to consider in the future airports specialising in goods traffic. This is out of the question at the present time since the bulk of freight is still carried in passenger aircraft holds which, incidentally, are continually increasing in volume. These all-cargo airports will give birth to large industrial complexes, an idea of which is given today by major seaports, together with container sorting terminals which will form the main junction points in overland transport networks. Similarly, aircraft maintenance operations will probably be centred on aerodromes like those which already exist near major aircraft factories. The subject of facilities required for private flying has been deliberately ignored. Foreseeable growth in this area will be comparable to that for the private car, ie enormous. In all air terminals, automation will make it possible to speed up procedures which cannot be eliminated. Preparations are already being made to solve the urgent problems of handling high-capacity aircraft: automatic check-in, entirely automatic baggage handling and passenger movements, simplified or computerised administrative formalities for passengers and freight, generalisation of the use of containers, etc. Problems involving the airports of the future will, in fact, probably come under the psycho-sociological field more than the technical field. A very detailed investigation has been conducted by the Paris Airport Authority to analyse the behaviour of the future air passenger when air transport has become absolutely commonplace and completely depersonalised by automation. It appears that air terminals will have to be especially designed to create around the passenger an environment meeting his continually increasing and often contradictory requirements for rapid efficiency and a friendly atmosphere, individual independence and high-quality personal service. the airport is both part of a transport Like any transport infra-structure, system and part of an urban system. It must therefore be planned coherently in both systems, which is difficult, for their interests are often contradictory. The town, for example, rejects the airport which eats up space and creates noise,
FUTURES
June I%9
323
324
Airport Planning
but the town demands the airport which, as a centre of trade and a creator of jobs, is a factor in economic development; or else the airport users demand convenient means of surface transport, but the problem cannot be settled separately from that of traffic in general in the urban region in question. It seems, however, that these conflicts may be solved better in the future than in the past because of greater awareness of the importance of air transport in economic and social development. Airports do not run the risk of acting as a brake on growth in aviation. But the giant airports of today have become victims of their own size and its resulting limitations and will probably disappear and make way for smaller, more numerous, more specialised airports that are better adapted to the environment of the future. These airports, serving STOL and VTOL aircraft, will reduce the disturbance in urban neighbourhoods and terminal delays, and will be cheaper and more efficient. Because air transport is a very dynamic field particularly subject to development, airports often lead the field in innovations for transport infra-structure. The dynamic nature of air transport has meant that it is peculiarly susceptible to innovation. The developments in airports are likely to remain the torch of innovation that has guided other transport infra-structures such as railway stations and bus terminals.
FUTURES
June 1969
Airport Planning
AIRPORT PLANNING For a place in the future
environment
J. Block
There is so much at stake, economically and socially, in the building of an airport that forecasting studies and planning a long time in advance are of the greatest importance. Aircraft, airspace, airports and ground environment are parts of a system which must be analysed and planned together so as to anticipate the expanding requirements of human and freight transport.
WORLD commercial air traffic is now expanding exponentially at very high rates giving approximately a two-fold increase in every five years for passenger traffic and a two-fold increase in every four years for freight. The problems created by such a growth rhythm, particularly with regard to airport infrastructure, can be imagined, even though the number of aircraft journeys doubles only every eight years owing to the increase in the unit capacity of aircraft. Infra-structure is naturally difficult to develop, not only because of the property and administrative problems involved but also because it represents substantial investments which can only be written down over fairly long periods. Ten to fifteen years may be required between the first inclination to build a new major airport and its opening, quite simply because it is very difficult to find several thousands of hectares of almost virgin land not too far from the town to be served, on which it is possible to build at a reasonable cost and with which it is possible to associate the volume of airspace necessary for the regulation of traffic before landing and following take-off. Once this land is found, it is also important that local residents should not oppose the project for fear of noise or by making excessive claims as to the value of the land to be purchased. The examples of New York, which has been looking for a site for a fourth airport for years, and London which is looking for a site for a third, are good illustrations of this kind of difficulty. And although Paris is now lucky enough to be able to build the Roissy-en-France airport, the initial idea was expressed as early as 1957. Airport development must therefore be planned a very long time in advance, which is particularly difficult considering that aircraft manufacturers can launch a new model on the market within a few years-Boeing spoke for the M. Block is Director of Planning and Development, Paris Airport Authority. FUTURES
June 1969
Airport Planning
first time in 1965 of the Boeing 747 which will be put in service at the end of 1g6g-and airlines can mod+ their networks almost without any warning. When designing a major airport, it is necessary to allow on average for each passenger a year, I sq metre of land within the airport boundary, I sq metre severely affected by noise outside the boundary, and an investment of $30. An airport with a capacity of 30 million passengers a year like Roissy-en-France thus requires an area of 3000 hectares-ie a third of the area within the Paris town boundaries-imposes building restrictions over another 3000 hectares, and costs almost a $1000 million in its final development stage. So as to cope with up to 140 aircraft landings or take-offs in a peak hour, it also requires a corresponding capacity on the airways system; and there is the additional problem of a likely gooo vehicles an hour in one direction on its access roads, enough to saturate six motorway lanes. As well as this, direct employment will be created for 50,000 people and indirect employment for the same number. Thus 300,000 people will be supported by the airport, occupying IOO,OOOdwellings. It can be understood that planning errors on this can scarcely be remedied. It should also be noted however, that if air traffic were to go on doubling every five years and if airport areas required were to remain proportional to this traffic, the 550,000 sq km of French territory would be completely covered with airports in 75 years’ time. Accordingly, it must be recognised that either air traffic will not develp so quickly or techniques will change. It seems likely that it will be the techniques that will change. Prospects
for traffic growth
It must be noted that the aircraft has still made but very little headway in the transport market; it mainly tackles long distances-the average for the world as a whole is about 1,000 km-and it still takes only a minority of travellers with a high standard of living, or goods with a high specific value. In 1968 there were some 320 million journeys by air, and about 9,600 million tonne-kilometres of freight were carried. Even in advanced countries the proportion of air transport is still low; a study conducted in I 965 showed that only I o/oof the population of Western Europe used aircraft in that year, that air transport accounted for only 15% of intra-European travel beyond 500 km and almost no trips of under 300 km. Air freight is operating under similar conditions. Paris, for example, which is in third place after London and Frankfurt in this field, exports and imports goods by air that only represent o - 2% of French foreign trade in terms of tonnage. However, in terms of value, they represent 5% of French foreign trade, which indicates that air transport is still attracting goods of very high value only. These facts suggest that aviation will probably be able to go on developing its market substantially for a very long time to come. In the case of passengers, the continual rise in the standard of living, education and urbanisation and the constant progress of aviation in terms of costs, speed, comfort and safety are powerful factors in favour of air transport growth, and the importance which commercial aviation has assumed in the United States testifies to this.
FUTURES
June 1960
319
320
Airport Planning
NUMBER
OF AIR PASSENGERS
ON DOMESTIC per 1000 inhabitants
ROUTES
IN 1966
GDP per inhabitant($)
USA
500
3011
UK
106
1459
Germany
85
1750
France
36
1585
Italy
31
1045
Most traffic forecast models show that demand elasticity in air transport in relation to the rise in income or the decline in fares is around 2. Thus an annual increase in income of 4% plus a decline in fares of 2% would give a traffic increase of I 2%. If we add 2% for the increase in the urban population, we have a rate of 14%, or in other words, about a two-fold increase every five years. As for freight, the general picture is more favourable than is often thought. Users are just beginning to realise that although the aircraft costs more per tonne-kilometre, it permits savings on insurance, packaging, stocks and warehouses and makes it possible to meet demand much more rapidly. Some experts think that air freight might rapidly become a more important activity for airlines-in terms of tonne-kilometres-than passenger services.
The changes
in technique
It is not enough merely to see that the market exists; it must also be shown that the air transport techniques are good enough to develop the market, taking into account competition from rapid trains and ships. Here, air transport must be thought of as a whole, ie in terms of a ‘system’. It would be pointless to have improved aircraft if they could not move in airspace or land at airports. Similarly, it would be useless to have airports if they could not be operated because of noise or congestion of their surface access are therefore facilities. Aircraft, airspace, airports and ground environment parts of a system which must necessarily be analysed and planned together, otherwise the shortcomings in one area may disrupt the whole system. Something like this is in fact now happening in the north-east of the United States owing to the congestion of airspace. Thus the future of airports cannot be imagined without studying the future of the other parts of the system and trying to identify the bottlenecks that are likely to jeopardise development. With regard to co-ordinated planning, major effects are being made everywhere in the world to associate aircraft manufacturers, airlines, airport authorities and those responsible for town planning, more closely. True, there will be many problems, but a good start has been made and the solidarity of the interests involved may help to solve them. The trend towards increasing the capacity of conventional aircraft has the twofold effect of delaying airspace congestion and cutting operating costs, thus making it possible to meet demand as well as attracting new passengers. There seems to be no limit to this increase in aircraft size; weights of 700 metric tons, fuselage lengths of IOO metres and spans
FUTURES
June 1999
Airport Planning
of 85 metres are now conceivable and such aircraft will probably be available for freight before passenger traffic. As a result, difficulties may arise at airports with regard to the bearing strength of runways, the strength of bridges and the geometric dimensions of taxi-ways and aircraft loading stands. But these problems will not be insoluble if manufacturers increase the number of wheels on landing gear and ensure good aircraft manoeuvrability on the ground. The progress in engines and aerodynamics of conventional aircraft has ended the race to lengthen runways. Noise control has also entered an active phase; certification of the noise of aircraft is going to be imposed on manufacturers and initially this will represent a cut of about 10% in sound levels as compared with existing machines, which will be reduced still further with technical progress. Not all the noise problems around airports will be solved by this but certainly they will be alleviated, making it possible to guarantee that the increase in traffic will not worsen the present situation. Certain flight restrictions, particularly on night operations, may also be lifted, which is very important for the development of freight. Even more important for the future is the development of new, non-conventional aircraft. These are mainly supersonic (SST), short take-off and landing (STOL) and vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. The first will enable the very-long distance market to be developed by raising quality of service: covering 6,000 km in 2-3 hours instead of 7, or 10,000 in 5-6 hours instead of 12, has considerable appeal for anyone travelling frequently by air. SST’s create scarcely any particular problems at airports, apart from the probably high noise level owing to the power of the engines (thrust/weight ratio of 45% as against 25% for subsonic aircraft). STOL aircraft are at present undergoing a period of development which is justified for several reasons : l They enable the aircraft to be introduced in regions where it would be impossible to set up conventional airports either because the topography is unsuitable (mountains, islands, etc), or because there is not enough traffic to justify the cost (developing or desert countries). l They enable the use of airspace to be increased in very busy regions through their ability to operate outside conventional airways and landing and take-off paths (see tests with the Breguet 941 /McDonnell 188 in the north-east of the United States). l They are a good replacement for the helicopter on short routes because their operating costs are much lower. However, they require a bigger infra-structure than helicopters, which limits this advantage to favourable sites (for example, links between the New York and Washington airports and services for the Los Angeles region).
STOL aircraft will certainly facilitate the development of air transport by conquering new markets in regions with a difficult terrain, in virgin territory and on short routes. But in this last resort their operating cost, which is higher than the conventional aircraft’s, can only be offset if they permit a gain in time over competitive transport. This supposes that stolports can be located near traffic-generating centres. The shortness of the runways required (about
FUTURES
June 1999
321
322
Airport Ranning
450 metres long) may in fact permit their location nearer to urban areas than major conventional airports, but in many cases it will be impossible to accommodate them in the centre of towns. Only VTOL aircraft really appear as capable of taking over the shortdistance transport market for aviation. This is an important market as most journeys are over short distances. VTOL aircraft require only very small areas and are not demanding with regard to obstacles. The location of vertiports in the centre of cities-on the ground or on terraces--is therefore perfectly feasible provided the VTOL noise level is acceptable. This problem has not yet been solved, but prospects are good. Then there is the economic aspect: the helicopter has hardly been developed commercially because of its price, but future VTOL aircraft, whether derived from the helicopter or not, will be much less costly to operate. A study conducted on services by helicopter for the Paris region has already shown that if a heliport could be located in the centre of the business district the time saving compared with surface methods of travelling would justify the extra cost. There is no doubt that the breakthrough of economic and quiet VTOL aircraft, which is considered probable between 1980 and 1985, will be just as great a revolution in aviation as the advent ofjets in 1958, since these machines will be able to compete effectively on very-short, short and even medium distances. They will in fact be using a network of vertiports placed very near to the traffic generating centres and will thus solve the problem of economic penetration into the centre of towns, which the other transport methods cannot do. They will make possible rapid direct links between a large number of points, with limited expenses on infra-structure and reduced terminal delays, which will be particularly advantageous and necessary in the conurbations of the future. The optimum utilisation of airspace poses problems that the growth in the number of aircraft will make increasingly difficult. Fortunately, solutions can be considered through increasingly complete automation of control and improved accuracy in identifying the exact position of each aircraft, its path and its speed. Extension of such automation to landing systems wiil give the aircraft the main quality it is still lacking, namely regularity. Once this is provided, there will be a further reason for even more traffic growth. The automation of aircraft guidance on the ground will pose quite difficult problems at very big airports where the taxiway network will grow increasingly complex and become similar to a railway network on which several dozen machines may be moving at the same time. Airports
of the future
The problems the airports will have to overcome will be mainly traffic flow and financial; the aim will be to cope with a considerable amount of traffic at the least cost. It has already been shown that today’s area and investment ratios required per passenger are incompatible with the foreseeable development in traffic. But the technological mutation of aircraft will enable this contradiction to be partly overcome. The development of STOL and VTOL aircraft
FUTURES
June lS6#
Airport Planning
for short and medium distances, ie for go% at least of future air trips, will make it possible to replace giant airports which eat up space and money and whose very size creates increasingly insoluble problems for the neighbourhood, by a large number of small, inexpensive stolports and vertiports. Thus, to handle the foreseeable 600 million air passengers a year in the Paris region in the year 2000 (ie 60 times the present figure), will not require IO giant airports each handling a traffic of 60 million passengers a year, which would be impossible to build owing to the lack of suitable sites, but rather 200 vertiports and stolports whose area would range between o ‘5 and 200 hectares and each of which would serve a region with IOO,OOO inhabitants and account for an annual traffic of three million passengers a year, with about 100 aircraft movements a day, posing no noise, access, congestion or cost problems. One or two conventional long-runway airports will be sufficient for long-haul supersonic or hypersonic aircraft. Generally speaking, the way to reduce costs will be to specialise facilities as much as possible, so that they can be adapted to their functions with maximum output and minimum waste. The development of air freight will, in particular, make it possible to consider in the future airports specialising in goods traffic. This is out of the question at the present time since the bulk of freight is still carried in passenger aircraft holds which, incidentally, are continually increasing in volume. These all-cargo airports will give birth to large industrial complexes, an idea of which is given today by major seaports, together with container sorting terminals which will form the main junction points in overland transport networks. Similarly, aircraft maintenance operations will probably be centred on aerodromes like those which already exist near major aircraft factories. The subject of facilities required for private flying has been deliberately ignored. Foreseeable growth in this area will be comparable to that for the private car, ie enormous. In all air terminals, automation will make it possible to speed up procedures which cannot be eliminated. Preparations are already being made to solve the urgent problems of handling high-capacity aircraft: automatic check-in, entirely automatic baggage handling and passenger movements, simplified or computerised administrative formalities for passengers and freight, generalisation of the use of containers, etc. Problems involving the airports of the future will, in fact, probably come under the psycho-sociological field more than the technical field. A very detailed investigation has been conducted by the Paris Airport Authority to analyse the behaviour of the future air passenger when air transport has become absolutely commonplace and completely depersonalised by automation. It appears that air terminals will have to be especially designed to create around the passenger an environment meeting his continually increasing and often contradictory requirements for rapid efficiency and a friendly atmosphere, individual independence and high-quality personal service. the airport is both part of a transport Like any transport infra-structure, system and part of an urban system. It must therefore be planned coherently in both systems, which is difficult, for their interests are often contradictory. The town, for example, rejects the airport which eats up space and creates noise,
FUTURES
June I%9
323
324
Airport Planning
but the town demands the airport which, as a centre of trade and a creator of jobs, is a factor in economic development; or else the airport users demand convenient means of surface transport, but the problem cannot be settled separately from that of traffic in general in the urban region in question. It seems, however, that these conflicts may be solved better in the future than in the past because of greater awareness of the importance of air transport in economic and social development. Airports do not run the risk of acting as a brake on growth in aviation. But the giant airports of today have become victims of their own size and its resulting limitations and will probably disappear and make way for smaller, more numerous, more specialised airports that are better adapted to the environment of the future. These airports, serving STOL and VTOL aircraft, will reduce the disturbance in urban neighbourhoods and terminal delays, and will be cheaper and more efficient. Because air transport is a very dynamic field particularly subject to development, airports often lead the field in innovations for transport infra-structure. The dynamic nature of air transport has meant that it is peculiarly susceptible to innovation. The developments in airports are likely to remain the torch of innovation that has guided other transport infra-structures such as railway stations and bus terminals.
FUTURES
June 1969