Successful Cooperation Between Heijmans & airsight for Amsterdam Schiphol Airport

With the goal to enhance safety and efficiency by enabling aircraft to taxi in both directions independently of each other, the single-lane taxiway Quebec at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport has been turned into a dual taxiway. This has been realised by constructing a second taxiway bridge parallel to the existing one.
(For more information see this article or this video).

For these construction works, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport cooperated with Heijmans, a major listed construction company (EURONEXT AMS: HEIJM) based in the Netherlands. As part of the reconstruction of the taxiway bridge, the adjacent manoeuvring areas have also been redesigned by Heijmans to facilitate the new taxiway system. 

During the past two years, airsight supported Heijmans in several projects with the objective to verify the compliance of the designs with applicable certification specifications by EASA (i.e. CS-ADR-DSN). The scope of the projects included the new taxiway bridge as well as the adjacent manoeuvring areas north and south of the taxiway bridge, encompassing a complex taxiway system with around 20 taxiways. The projects comprised gap analyses, detailed compliance checks and taxi simulations.

Gap Analysis

As a first step, airsight identified gaps between the initial layout planning and the detailed planning by Heijmans. Furthermore, airsight determined the applicable certification specifications, which have not been checked during the layout planning phase.

Compliance Check

For the detailed compliance check airsight focused on the identified gaps and applicable certification specifications which had not been covered yet. In total, the compliance check included almost 50 different certification specifications relevant for dimensions, clearances, bearing strength, slopes, sight distance and visual aids (i.e. markings, signs, lights).

The compliance check was conducted as a desktop review which means that the check was based on CAD drawings and other relevant data provided by Heijmans, such as the elevation model to assess the sight distances and slopes. Additionally, airsight created taxi simulations using AviPLAN in order to check the dimensions and clearances.

In a final step, airsight collected the results of the compliance check in its own Compliance Checklist. The airsight Compliance Checklist provides our clients with a simple and yet detailed overview of the compliance status of each checked asset (i.e. runway, taxiway, stand, runway-holding position etc.) and all applicable certification specifications. This saves our clients valuable time and therefore costs regarding the identification and rectification of possible non-compliances at an early stage, supporting the overall certification and commissioning of aerodrome layout changes.

• Figures 1 & 2: Aircraft taxiing on new taxiway bridge (Source: news.schiphol.com)
• Figure 3: Slope Assessment in Global Mapper
• Figure 4: Taxi Simulation (main gear clearance) in AviPlan