PJ15 COSER

Common services

Addressing the notion of common service.

Common services (PJ15 COSER) is a SESAR 2020 project addressing the notion of common service.

The legacy of air traffic management (ATM) evolution in Europe has resulted in today’s highly fragmented country-based services. Because of this fragmentation, there is a negative impact on the cost of the provision of ATM service in Europe. COSER is a service that provides consumers with a capability which they would otherwise need to provide themselves and aims to mitigate this problem.

A fundamental goal of the Single European Sky (SES) initiative is to provide ATM services to airspace users at a cost of at least 50% less. COSER will contribute to the achievement of this goal. PJ15 encompasses air navigation service providers and the ground industry covering both provider and consumer perspectives. Thanks to its unique combination of operational and technical knowledge and experience, the group is in an excellent position to deliver high-quality results.

Rationale

The COSER approach follows a general principle within the Single European Sky initiative, which encourages the harmonisation of the provision of common air navigation services wherever possible.

The main benefit of this approach is to deliver enhanced cost-effectiveness to both the providing and consuming organisations. This could in turn potentially benefit the whole chain in the European air transportation business, making it more attractive as a means of transport. Additionally, there could be a positive impact on other ATM performance areas as well, such as capacity, safety, flight efficiency, etc. The providing organisations would benefit from economies of scale, whilst the consumers would no longer need to maintain and update proprietary solutions. Overall, a better rationalisation of deployment should be expected.

This common service approach, if it proves to be successful, could therefore be viewed as an essential means of improving the overall cost-effectiveness of the ATM business in Europe. 

Benefits

PJ15 mostly contributes to delivering cost-efficient services. By reducing the number of necessary deployments and systems to be maintained, the common service model is expected to reduce the costs of provision while maintaining the same quality of service.

As secondary benefits, the PJ15 partners are working to explore other advantages provided by the common services, namely:

  • Standardisation and faster implementation:  Having a “plug-and-play” service which is compliant with standards can greatly accelerate the rate at which different stakeholders implement the capability. Buying the service from the provider is normally faster than investing in and developing it;
  • Increased number of consumers: Whereas many potential consumers do not have the technical knowledge or financial means to benefit from the capability, a proven and cost-efficient service which can be “consumed” from the provider makes possible a higher number of consumers and consequently a higher volume of traffic benefiting from the SESAR solutions.

Solutions

PJ15 COSER is composed of six SESAR solutions:

  • PJ15-01 sub-regional DCB service;
  • PJ15-02 E-AMAN service;
  • PJ15-08 trajectory prediction service;
  • PJ15-09 delegation of airspace and contingency;
  • PJ15-10 static aeronautical data service;
  • PJ15-11 aeronautical digital map service.

Our role

EUROCONTROL has had a prominent twofold role in PJ15 as the Agency:

  • leads the content integration and transversal projects (PJ19 and PJ20) and other SESAR 2020 projects;
  • guided the performance and cost-benefit analysis activities of the project;
  • contributed with network and air traffic service expertise.

Implementation status

PJ15 COSER is composed of 6 SESAR solutions. Five will pass the TRL4/V2 maturity gate in Q1 2019. The remaining solution is still in TRL2/V1, following a full re-scope of the work to be addressed among all partners.

Partners

INDRA, COOPANS (with Austro Control, Croatia Control, Irish Aviation Authority, LFV, Naviair), LFV, DFS, DSNA, ENAIRE, ENAV, NATS, EUROCONTROL, FREQUENTIS (with Frequentis Austria, Hungaro Control and Atos), LEONARDO, THALES AIR SYSTEMS