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The call for safety nets - system safety defences that provide additional safety layers to prevent accidents - started in the early 1950's.
It took until the mid 1980's before the first ground-based safety nets - Short Term Conflict Alert (STCA) and Minimum Safe Altitude Warning (MSAW) - were deployed.
The Airborne Collision Avoidance System (ACAS) is mandated in Europe since 1 January 2000.
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In the light of a number of serious accidents in Europe in 2001 and 2002, the EUROCONTROL Provisional Council established a High Level Action Group for ATM Safety (AGAS) to assess European ATM safety and identify priority actions.
The resulting Strategic Safety Action Plan comprised amongst others the following requirements:
- EUROCONTROL should progress the work on ACAS II Resolution Advisory (RA) Downlink
- Common actions shall be taken to ensure that required standards and guidance material for ground-based safety nets are established
- Local actions shall be taken to ensure that the common actions are transferred into concrete solutions
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The need for standards and guidance material for ground-based safety nets was scoped in detail through a survey. The survey initially covered four topics and was later complemented with a fifth topic:
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- Ground based safety net implementations
Full-scale investigation of current practices related to STCA (Short Term Conflict Alert), MSAW (Minimum Safe Altitude Warning) and APW (Area Proximity Warning) in Europe. This survey highlighted, amongst others, that there are no harmonised or uniform optimisation procedures and validation criteria. In most cases, there is no explicit, overall policy and little or no involvement of Regulatory Authorities.
- Studies and R&D Actions
Search, selection and analysis of relevant studies and R&D actions concerning ground based safety nets. This survey highlighted that there is limited publicly available material to contribute to short-term safety net enhancement actions.
- Existing practices in the airborne domain
Analysis of relevant aspects of airborne safety nets, aimed at considering potentially useful practices for the ground domain. This survey highlighted contrasting practices for airborne safety nets.
- Current industrial capabilities and practices
Investigation of commercial products and services currently available in the domain of ground based safety nets. Many products and services are available, but detailed information is not publicly available.
- Practices in Military ATM
This survey highlighted, amongst others, that most areas of concern identified in the previous surveys apply equally or even more in Military Units.
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Summary report of the first four surveys389K |
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Report of the fifth survey305K |
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Whilst the surveys identified many areas of concern that are now being addressed through Standardisation, a number of key issues were indentified related to STCA & TCAS interaction and interoperability. These issues demonstrate the need for further improvement actions.
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Last validation: 02/09/2009
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