AIRPORT FLEET MANAGEMENT

The main goal when introducing and installing the telematics system apronfleet for apron asset movements is to optimally support the commercial processes of airport and ground handling operators. Apronfleet comprises a dispatch centre as working position for the dispatchers and on-board units for data access and driver communication in the vehicles. The on-board units are interconnected to the dispatch centre via standard GPRS or W-LAN. One of the major requirements of such systems is to automatically access and distribute load usage data of the ground service equipments and to provide this data for an automatic billing process. In order to be able to reference load usage times to drivers or customers the telematics systems supports an identification mechanism based on RFID and position mapping to specified apron areas such as aircraft stands, hangars, service areas or workshops.

The identification mechanism also ensures that only authorised personnel are able to drive the vehicle or use the equipment. The on- board unit can thus be connected to the equipment via its digital output signals which may switch-off the GSE should the user authentication fail. Load usage times of vehicles or ground power units are detected by ignition or separate binary input signals. Such signals are for instance used to detect the connection of a ground power unit to the aircraft in order to distinguish idle times from real load times. Such data connections are also used to access technical alerts or fuel levels of the equipment and to transmit this information to the dispatch centre. Equipment maintenance and refuelling jobs are hence only conducted when necessary. Due to a task specific selection of technical, process and positioning data the dispatchers have a comprehensive overview on the ground vehicle and are able to efficiently manage the entire ground handling fleet.

In addition, the controlling department has available a variety of data analysing reports. These reports will inform for example on the average and maximum usage of the equipment in a particular time frame for each equipment or concurrently, or on the allocation of equipment to customers and more. Apronfleet is prepared for two-way data connection other IT systems of an airport such as the FIDS via XML interface OT2i. This interface delivers data which can be used to e.g. augment the billing data with real flight information or provide telematics data to other departments of airport operations.