Enhancing situational awareness at airports: Opening the ATC frequency to ground vehicles has brought better safety and situational awareness

摘要

A controlled aerodrome usually has at least one runway on which take-off and landing operations take place. However, there may be more than aircraft on the runway. In certain situations, airport ground vehicles are required to operate on it, too. These may include routine activities, like visual runway inspections and test runs to check the instrument landing system (ILS), and non-routine activities, such as braking action measuring runs in wintery conditions or repair vehicles to change runway lights, as well as special missions, such as the fire brigade responding to an emergency situation.