Metron Aviation - Air Traffic Flow Management Systems

Founded in 1995, Metron Aviation pioneered the advancement of air traffic flow management (ATFM), working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to develop the industry’s first collaborative decision making (CDM) platform for optimizing system-wide traffic flow. Metron Aviation provides concept engineering, advanced research, software development, traffic flow management, surface operations management, airspace design and environmental research and analysis solutions to the global aviation industry. Metron Aviation fuses advanced science and mathematics with unparalleled subject-matter expertise to turn groundbreaking air traffic management (ATM) research concepts into next-generation operational capabilities.

Recently, Metron Aviation was the recipient of the largest small business award in FAA history, System Engineering 2020 (SE-2020). Additionally, South Africa’s air traffic and navigation services (ATNS) began live operations with Metron Aviation’s ATFM solution this year, while Airservices Australia is in the process of deploying the ATFM solution to support its long-term gate-to-gate CDM vision.

Air traffic flow management systems

The efficiency and optimization benefits of ATFM are measurable, verifiable and undeniable. For more than ten years, the FAA command center has relied upon Metron Aviation to support its core systems and deliver innovations including the industry’s first real-time advanced ATFM platform, CDM-based slot substitution and airspace flow programs (AFP). The FAA’s ATFM system has saved over 68m minutes of delays, 186m liters of fuel, 573,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions and US$6.3bn in operating costs, since system-wide deployment in 1999.

SE-2020 is the FAA’s strategic program for implementing the next-generation air transportation system (NextGen). The ten-year contract awarded to Metron Aviation has a value of $1.15bn, making it the largest single award to a small business in FAA history. Metron Aviation, as prime contractor, has assembled a proven team of industry leaders with unmatched domain expertise in all aspects of the national airspace system (NAS) to provide the full breadth and depth of aviation expertise across all SE-2020 functional areas.

The ATNS Central Airspace Management Unit (CAMU) looked for proven ATFM solutions that could dynamically balance capacity and demand, while providing a CDM capability to allow airlines to effectively utilize available capacity for the maximum benefit of their business, operations and passengers.

Air traffic flow initiatives for airport and airspace volumes

The Metron Traffic Flow system provides the CAMU with comprehensive ATFM capabilities to model and implement all traffic flow initiatives for both aerodrome/airport and airspace volumes in South Africa. Traffic flow initiatives are used to dynamically balance air traffic demand with capacity to keep traffic flowing as smoothly and efficiently as possible. The system interfaces with ATM production systems, including Thales’ airspace monitoring tool, EUROCAT, and other software systems, through a scalable, event-driven data gateway.

Airservices Australia will initially deploy Metron traffic flow to provide the foundation for ATFM and regional coordination to enhance the capacity, efficiency and safety of the Australian airspace. The contract covers a 15-year period, with all options exercised, and provides the framework for future collaboration. Metron Traffic Flow will be used to manage traffic flow and capacity for all controlled

airspace, including those flights originating from outside of Airservices Australia’s area of responsibility and entering Australian airspace.

The system provides CDM capabilities for Airservices Australia’s operations groups, airlines and regional stakeholders. Metron Traffic Flow will be deployed at the National Operations Center (NOC) in Canberra, control towers, area control centers and airline operations centers as well as being used by Australian military units.

Fully-integrated air traffic flow management system

Metron Harmony, Metron Aviation’s complete integrated-ATFM (I-ATFM) solution, provides proven products for strategic planning, pre-tactical and tactical management of traffic flows to maximize the available capacity of system-wide operations. The full-spectrum I-ATFM solution includes:

• Strategic, pre-tactical and tactical traffic flow management through slot allocations and calculated takeoff times (CTOT)
• Pre-tactical and tactical departure management for merging into an en route stream or to a common departure fix
• Pre-tactical and tactical aircraft sequencing, scheduling and runway allocations to meet airport arrival operating constraints
• Pre-tactical and tactical airport surface management for optimizing operations
• Fuel, emissions and noise impact modeling, monitoring and reporting

The latest Metron Harmony solution is Metron Harmony for airlines. Metron Harmony for airlines is the industry’s first air traffic flow management solution for airlines. Metron Harmony for Airlines integrates a real-time and predictive view of air traffic conditions with airport surface operations to dramatically improve on-time performance, reduce tarmac delays, lower operating costs and provide better service to passengers. In the past, airline operations lacked visibility into airport, regional and nationwide traffic demand and were thus unable to optimize departure and arrival operations affected by these conditions. With Metron Harmony for Airlines, users get a comprehensive view of current and future air traffic conditions. For the first time, airlines can predict future congestion events, such as gate conflicts, to optimize pushback times, reduce surface gridlock and improve operations.