Interconnected systems work towards vision of a smart Melbourne airport

More than 34 million passengers travel through Melbourne Airport every year, with this number expected to increase to around 64 million by 2033.

The airport recently deployed TIBCO solutions that interconnect everything and provides real-time information in support of unprecedented visibility into airport operational systems.

Previously, the airport used a silo-based heterogenic system landscape where information resided in different silos.

With the adoption of TIBCO solutions, Melbourne airport aims to combine events and information held in different systems into an intuitive and friendly user interface to enhance operational awareness.

The airport's new Situation Awareness Platform integrates detached systems, improving the overall efficiency of the airport.

Operators, planners, managers and external providers will be supplied with real-time information to support collaborative decision-making, resource-planning and identification of incidents which affect customers' journey and overall quality or airport service.

How this is done is through the utilisation of TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks that adapts data from external systems. The data is presented as a live visual representation of the airport in a web application.

Also essential is TIBCO Live Datamart that gives real-time analytics solutions so the airport can anticipate important business events in real-time as well as act on opportunities or threats as they occur.

The result is a real-time geostationary mash-up of data streams in an interactive map on any device. Data can be correlated in a real-time dashboard for operational status.

In addition, data mining enables Melbourne airport to represent, trend, predict and resource accurately in real time.

Vic Raymond, ICT Strategy, planning and architecture manager at Melbourne airport notes "the system has established a strong foundation for the continuing integration of information and operational technologies allowing proactive, and in the future, predictive operations, in line with our vision of being a 'smart' airport.

In line with the vision of a smart airport, Raymond notes that the technology allows the airport to have visual overview of real-time operational activities as they occur.