With the TITAN project now officially closed, we decided to bring you a set of questions and answers, in case you want a quick overview of what TITAN was all about. You can find all titan documents on the official website here. The TITAN video is available here.
What is TITAN? – Turnaround Integration in Trajectory and Network (TITAN) is an FP7 funded EU collaborative project that developed an advanced operational concept for the turnaround process to improve predictability, flexibility, efficiency and cost effectiveness and to provide common situational awareness to the actors involved in the process.
How does TITAN relate to A-CDM? – TITAN is aligned with and complements A-CDM (Airport Collaborative Decision Making) as it aims for an even better management of the turnaround. TITAN will use the procedures and rules established for A-CDM supplemented by those specifically developed for the turnaround. Besides the A-CDM milestones, a set of turnaround-specific milestones have been defined to support the monitoring of the turnaround process.
How does TITAN relate to SESAR? – The TITAN operational concept is not only compatible with but in many ways is complementary to the SESAR Concept of Operations. It addresses those details that were not specifically elaborated in the SESAR CONOPS.
What are the most important new features that TITAN incorporates? – For the first time ever, the aircraft turnaround is described in a process-based, service oriented manner. The concept is built around the principles of Trajectory Based Operations (TBO) and makes full use of System Wide Information Management (SWIM) if available, while being compatible also with the legacy environment.
What are the outputs of TITAN? – TITAN considers the turnaround as a set of processes, each of which requires appropriate services to support it and achieve timely completion. TITAN provides complete visibility of the processes and the supporting services with intelligent warnings in case there is a deviation from the planned evolution of any of them. Timely decisions can then be taken to remedy the situation.
How is this better turnaround management achieved? – The improvements are achieved by providing predictive, common awareness for the actors involved, of all the relevant influences, including those coming from the airport land-side. The situation on the airport access road or queuing at choke-points in the terminal are examples of these latter. The TITAN tool is the instrument for achieving this common awareness.
What kind of airport is TITAN of relevance for? – Problems with the turnaround are encountered more often at big, busy airports and hence the enhancements made possible by TITAN are the most effective at such airports. But the concept of TITAN is fully scalable and operators at smaller airports may also benefit.
Who will be the main users of the TITAN tool? – The TITAN tool is a decision making aid that can be used by any stakeholder concerned with the aircraft turnaround. The TITAN CBA contains information on the specific benefits.
What do I need to use TITAN? – TITAN assumes that the airport to which it relates has A-CDM fully implemented. It can then be deployed as a stand alone tool or it can be integrated with an existing service (e.g. handling agent or AOC). New types of sensors may be needed to register the different land-side events. The TITAN tool user interface can be integrated as a separate window on an existing facility screen or displayed on a dedicated screen.
Are there specific training requirements? – To fully exploit the TITAN concept, operators need to understand the impact of certain activities and actors not previously considered in A-CDM (e.g. processes on the land-side). To achieve an effective cooperation with new partners, special training on a limited scale may be required for them.
Where can I buy the TITAN tool? – Following the closure of the TITAN project at the end of 2012, companies like Jeppesen may decide to commercialize products based on the TITAN concept.
Will there be a need to upgrade TITAN once the SESAR projects are deployed? – TITAN was defined to be fully compatible with and complementary to the SESAR Concept of Operations. As such, TITAN should integrate seamlessly into the future SESAR environment. Eventual enhancements or modifications may be needed to incorporate future developments regarding the data exchange models used and the demands of the SWIM environment. However, none of these will affect the conceptual basis of TITAN.