Soaring to new heights: Building wings @ GTAA
George Irwin
P. Eng, President/Chief Software Engineer Irwin Consulting Services Inc.
200 North Town Centre Blvd, Suite 101 Markham, Ontario CANADA L3R 8G5
Telephone: (905) 940-1038, Fax: (905) 305-0529
E-Mail: george@irwincs.com
Abstract
The Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) is one of the busiest commercial airports in
North America. GTAA is currently undergoing a multi-billion dollar reconstruction and a
staggering rate of information change estimated at 10-15 person-years/day. This paper will
discuss the approach that GTAA took in implementing a Web-based Information Navigation and
GIS System (WINGS) to "serve up" its vast storehouse of technical information to users
throughout GTAA. Specifically, this paper will outline the methodology that was used, the
significant technologies that were employed and the key issues that need to be addressed when
using the web to deploy broad-reaching applications that incorporate spatial data. This paper will
build on a presentation entitled "Building An Enterprise-Wide Spatial Information Integration
Platform" presented at GITA 2000 which outlined the "platform-building" approach that was used
in creating WINGS, a powerful and flexible, yet eminently usable web-based information system.
Background: GTAA, ADP & TDC
The Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) has been responsible for management, operation
and maintenance of Lester B. Pearson International Airport (LBPIA) since 1996. LBPIA is
Canada’s busiest airport, handling 29M passengers/year and, in terms of international passengers,
it is North America’s 4th busiest airport and is the 15th busiest in the world. The infrastructure at
GTAA currently includes 4 runways, 85 bridged gates, 20 aircraft positions and over 10,000
parking spaces.
Airport Development Program
The Toronto airport is currently in the midst of a massive $4.4B Airport Development Program
(ADP) to improve airport infrastructure. This program includes: Terminal Development, Airside
Development, Infield Development, and Utilities & Airport Support. The new facilities at GTAA
are designed to handle 50M passengers per year and will include: a new terminal building (to
replace terminals 1 and 2), a new parking garage (12,600 capacity), an airport people mover, new
access roads and a new aircraft fueling system.
Technical Data Centre
The Technical Data Centre (TDC) is the group at GTAA that has the responsibility of managing
all of the “technical” information that relates to LBPIA. More specifically, the TDC has the
following mandate:
- "To ensure that the airport data is up-to-date
- "To provide a high quality product
- "To provide efficient access to technical and graphical data and information
- "To ensure that GTAA CAD/data standards are adhered to by both internal project teams
and consultants
- "To maintain a high level of service and communication
Why Wings?
It’s very difficult to establish “buy-in” for something that doesn’t exist, but that’s exactly what
you need to do at the outset when building an enterprise-wise spatial information integration
platform. Here are some of the things that we did to build momentum for WINGS.
The Business Case
The basic need for a system to manage and disseminate the vast quantity of information
associated with the airport facilities at LBPIA stimulated GTAA to look at implementing GIS
technology in the first place. After numerous feasibility studies and just prior to another
feasibility study being undertaken, the Manager of the TDC at GTAA made a decision to veto the
feasibility study and instead commissioned the implementation of a web-based Geographic
Information System in 1999.
This initial need was further magnified by the construction activities associated with current
airport terminal development project. It has been estimated that the TDC is currently coping with
a rate of information change that is estimated at approximately 10-15 man-years/day by senior
airport management. With such a staggering rate of information change, it was absolutely
imperative that appropriate mechanisms both organizational and technological be put in place to
assist the Technical Data Centre staff in their role as the gatekeeper of facilities information for
LBPIA. After an initial pilot implementation of the GIS technology, WINGS was born.
Objectives
The next thing we did to help set WINGS on a firm footing was to define a set of objectives that
we wanted to accomplish with WINGS, namely:
- To provide a single tool (portal) that will enable a broad class of airport
personnel to access (technical) data that is pertinent to their jobs.
- To use the geographic (spatial) location of assets as a common denominator
(backbone) for all relevant information about airport assets.
- To expose errors and omissions in current data sources with a view to
defining processes by which these errors and omissions can be corrected.
- To provide an accurate inventory of airport assets with the intention of
improving upon the current economic viability of airport operations. (I.e.
increasing profitability)
- To improve the airport personnel’s ability and readiness to respond to
emergencies.
- To provide relevant information to assist in airport planning and engineering
activities.
- To streamline airport equipment maintenance activities.
- To get everyone to share and maintain his or her own (spatial and attribute)
data in a format that is both consistent and appropriate.
- To publish an “information catalogue” to make airport personnel aware that
(technical) information is or can be made available to them.
- To reduce the information maintenance load on the Technical Data Centre.
