ATS Unit providing Service

Introduction

The ATS unit providing service for an airspace is not part of the minimum AIP data set but required in ENR 2.1 ENR 2.1 FIR, UIR, TMA AND CTA:

2) identification of unit providing the service;

3) call sign of aeronautical station serving the unit and language(s) used, specifying the area and conditions, when and where to be used, if applicable;

4) frequencies, and if applicable SATVOICE number, supplemented by indications for specific purposes

and AD 2.17 / Ad 3.16 Air traffic services airspace

4) call sign and language(s) of the ATS unit providing service;

Hence, it is considered conditional data.

The figure below shows the main AIXM 5 classes used for encoding ATS unit providing service, including relevant list of values for some properties.

AIXM 5 does not provide a direct relationship between the Airspace and Unit feature. A Service is provided by a Unit. The Service of a certain type can then be related to an Airspace.

Service is an abstract feature which is specialised into the following classes:

• AirTrafficControlService
  A kind of service that provides control and separation services to aircraft in the air.
• InformationService
  A kind of service that consists in the provision of aeronautical, meteorological, traffic and related information to aircraft crew and other actors involved in flight operations, in flight or on the ground.
• SearchRescueService
  The performance of distress monitoring, communication, coordination and search and rescue functions, initial medical assistance or medical evacuation, through the use of public and private resources, including cooperating aircraft, vessels and other craft and installations.
• AirTrafficManagementService
  A kind of service that provides flight planning and flow management operations.

The Unit providing the Service carries a name attribute that shall be used for the identification.

For certain specialisations of services, a relationship to the concerned AirportHeliport can be defined. This is applicable for AD 2.17 Air traffic services airspaces.

The CallSignDetail class is used to provide information about the operational identifier, by which the provider of the service is called, i.e. the callSign and the language used.

For the language, the ISO 639-2  shall be used. Note that in AIXM the language code is restricted to lower case and 3 characters.

The frequencies on which the Service is provided is encoded by using the RadioCommunicationChannel.frequencyTransmission attribute and if applicable also the RadioCommunicationChannel.frequencyReception attribute (see also Radio Communication Channel [RCC] for guidelines and rules).

The RadioCommunicationChannel.rank attribute can be used indicating the specific purposes of the communication channel, in terms of primary, alternate, emergency, etc.

How to identify that a particular RadioCommunicationChannel is related to a particular, CallSignDetail, see example below

In the example given above, this should be coded as two separated Service. Both provided by the same TWR Unit.

Hours of Service

This information is required for ATS airspaces usually published in "ENR 2.1 FIR, UIR, TMA AND CTA":

3) call sign of aeronautical station serving the unit and language(s) used, specifying the area and conditions, when and where to be used, if applicable;

In AIXM, this information will be provided via the Service.availability. The ServiceOperationalStatus class and its properties are used to code the detailed information, including the operationalStatus and the timeInterval.

An operational status has to be coded, in order to support the AIXM Digital NOTAM Event concept.

Coding Examples

The figure below shows an ATS Unit providing a Tower service within an airspace by using the DONLON CTR as example. In this case, the association with the AirportHeliport concerned may be coded both from the AirTrafficControlService and from the Unit level, but with different meanings. The Unit associated (isProvidedBy) with the AirTrafficControlService (as specialisation of Service) indicates who is the service provider. The Unit association (isLocatedAt) with the AirportHeliport indicates that the unit providing the service is actually located at the airport/heliport.

Coding examples can be found in the AIP Data Set - Specimen (DONLON).

References