Airport System Planning and Airport Master Plan: Conflicts and Compromises - Joel Shon

Date and Time: Wednesday, May 17: 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Location: Atrium

Joel Shon

Tainan University of Technology

PRESENTATION DESCRIPTION

Airport system plan is usually comprehended as a high level plan which defines the positioning of individual airport and allocate resources among them. Nonetheless, there are certain conflicts between the system plan and individual master plan of different airports, especially when two types of plans are carried out by different authorities with different consultants.
The conflicts of the two level of plans come from several aspects. Frist of all, since the system plan plays a role of high level plan, it seems reasonable to deliver system plan prior to master plan. Nonetheless, master plan of individual airport usually came earlier than system plan which is a much younger architecture developed in recent three decades. If the system planner has only limited knowledge of airport master plan, or the planner is not familiar with the history of individual airport development, the system plan would usually turn to be a disaster. Some argue that system plan should be a bottom-up integrated plan other than a top-down guidance. This may cause another problem of losing the whole picture of reginal or national airport developments. In the past decades, consultants tried both approaches of system plan in most nations across Asia, no best practice yet to be found.
In practice, the system plan usually maximizes the interest of the whole system, while the individual master plan seeks the best opportunity of one specific airport only. That is to say, under resource constraints, system plan is looking for the best solution of maximize passenger volume, throughput traffic, or even financial return of airport investment system wide. On the other hand, airport master plan usually tried to improve airport services, fight for budget, and emphasize equality of air transport for the residents living in rural area or remote islands. If individual airports are following the guidelines of system plan, it is very possible to sacrifice those less important, non-hub, remote, community, or non-profit airports in a system.
Moreover, the scarcest resource of airport development for small airport is usually capital and passenger; But for large airport, landside and airside space is the key. System plan always tried to find the balance of all issues, but since the needs of different airports varies, it is still difficult to find a global optimum in a dynamic airport system.
Since there are conflicts, there must be compromise for these two different level of plans, otherwise the whole system will easily be crushed. In practice, the system plan needed to be updated periodically to meet the needs of individual airports, while the master plan should still follow the guidance of system plan in order to get enough resources for sustainable development. Since mega and hub airports are creating more traffic congestions both in the air and on the surface, it is now possible to introduce trade-off schemes for secondary airports who take away the overflow traffic from major airports to reduce the GHG emissions and system delay within the whole air transportation system. This might be one of the future solutions to find the balance between individual airport needs and system optimization.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Joel Zhengyi Shon is a full professor in the Tainan University of Technology, Taiwan.
Starting from early 2000s, Dr. Shon has coordinated different airport projects in Taiwan, including airport site selection, deserted airport liquidation, and airport master plans. He is now the board member of Taoyuan international airports, also the steering committee of Air Transport Research Society, and World Congress of Transport Research Society. In addition, he serves International Chinese Transportation Professionals Association as the Chairman.

PRESENTATION FILE