Despite September 11th 2001, many international airports are operating close to capacity, a problem that is likely to become more acute given the projected long-term growth in air traffic. This growth is likely to have major implications on runway, terminal and surface access capacity, infrastructure which is already experiencing constraints. The area of surface access is as much, if not more an issue in terms of employees accessing the airport as it is for passengers. Typically, one third of access traffic can be attributed to employees. Employees represent a particular problem for airports in terms of surface access due to the frequent, peak hour nature of trips made and their higher usage rates of the car compared to passengers. A range of initiatives exist to encourage the use of modes other than the private car by employees but overall these measures tend to be ‘soft' in nature and one generally has to look to the non-airport sector to see examples of more innovative ‘harder' initiatives such as financial incentive and disincentive car parking measures direct to employees. This thesis utilises a series of carefully selected interviews and focus groups at Heathrow Airport and three best practice non-airport organisations, underpinned by a process grounded in the concept and methodology of best practice benchmarking, to suggest areas where BAA, and potentially airport authorities around the world, could learn from other organisations in the area of employee surface access and specifically car parking . It is concluded that there are four key areas airports should focus on to explore the issues surrounding the implementation of a car parking charge or car parking cash out direct to employees, namely: the use of a package approach; a requirement for top management support; gaining acceptance from employees, and; the issues surrounding the process of implementation. The thesis contributes to knowledge in a number of areas, predominantly the use of benchmarking in the area of car parking and the airport sector, an industry which has thus far not adopted the technique to any great extent.

D’importants efforts sont faits actuellement pour améliorer la navigation aéroportuaire, notamment grâce au concept A-SMGCS (Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System). Le but étant de pouvoir naviguer par tout temps, en particulier en condition de mauvaise visibilité. Un état de l’art des fonctions actuellement disponibles ainsi que des fonctions envisagées pour aider les pilotes sont présentés dans cette thèse. Le cœur du problème pour développer de nouvelles fonctionnalités pour la navigation aéroportuaire est de fournir une position estimée de l’avion avec un haut niveau de précision et d’intégrité. Généralement, cette position est calculée à partir du GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) et elle est parfois hybridée avec de l’inertie. La précision actuelle de la position estimée de l’avion est de l’ordre de la dizaine de mètres et son intégrité est caractérisée par un rayon de protection à 10-7/h de l’ordre de la centaine de mètre. Ce niveau de précision et d’intégrité n’est pas suffisant pour naviguer à la surface de l’aéroport en mauvaise condition de visibilité. Une précision sub-métrique associée à une intégrité métrique est requise (voir chapitre II de la thèse) pour naviguer en toute sécurité, en particulier à la porte d’embarquement où l’avion doit se garer. Dans un premier temps, les besoins pour naviguer en toute sécurité à la surface de l’aéroport ont été analysés afin de pouvoir en dériver des exigences sur la navigation. Les différents capteurs et moyens envisageables pour estimer la position de l’avion avec le niveau de précision requis sont introduits ainsi que leurs modèles d’erreur. Les résultats des simulations sont présentés dans le dernier chapitre. / Important effort is being undertaken to design new A-SMGCS (Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System) architecture and functions that will enable an efficient and safe management of the traffic on the surface of the airport, in all weather conditions. The state of the art in airport navigation, with the current functions available to assist pilots, and also the additional applications envisaged to improve the airport navigation in low visibility condition is introduced. To develop new airport navigation functionalities, the heart of the problem is to provide an aircraft position estimate with a high level of accuracy and integrity. This position is often provided by GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) and sometimes it is hybridize with inertia. The current aircraft position estimate accuracy is about dozen meters and the integrity is characterized by a protection level about hundred meters at 10-7/h. This current accuracy and integrity are not sufficient no navigate safely on the airport surface in low visibility conditions. A submetric accuracy with a high integrity level is required (see chapter II), particularly at the gate to park the aircraft. First of all, needs to navigate safely on the airport surface have been analyzed to be able to derive requirements about navigation system. It is important to note that a good knowledge of the context (airport environment) is required to develop an appropriate application. After this analysis of needs and context, a solution has been developed in this thesis. The proposed solution has been validated by simulation.

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