## (3) Developing air traffic system

## ① Building a new air traffic system

While continuing leaps in the demand for air traffic are predicted and responses to diversified needs are sought, long-term plans on the development of a globally interoperable system of air traffic management (ATM) is under study by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and also in the U.S. and Europe. In Japan as well, a long-term vision of the futures of an air traffic system, as early as 2025, was formulated as CARATS. $ ^{Note} $ CARATS is built to achieve the core goal of reforming into a highly integrated system air traffic management that optimizes the paths of aircraft from departure to arrival. A roadmap to its realization is now ready and under review. In FY2012, plans to phase in the specific measures defined in the roadmap, indicators that represent the status of achievement of the goals of CARATS, etc. were reviewed in collaboration among industry, academia and government.

Specifically, the possible installation and deployment of high level area navigation (RNAV) and RNAV for smaller aircraft have been debated to help cut flight hours and fuel charges by shortening flight routes and to achieve further increases in the rate of airport inauguration through improved flight and other conditions. Measures have also been weighed to mitigate congestion of aircraft flying towards an airport as they meet at a junction, including timed sequencing of aircraft and their interval setting, to predict the extent of wake turbulences arising from prior aircraft to help narrow traffic control intervals, release topological and obstacle information to avoid collusion and upgrading aviation weather observation information, etc. to ease flight conditions, etc.

## ② Addressing growing metropolitan airport capacities

A totally new method of aircraft operation designed to upgrade air traffic services amid growing metropolitan airport and airspace capacities has been introduced at Tokyo International Airport (Haneda) since October 2010. According to this method, four runways arranged in double crosses are in service and an aircraft is guided to depart or arrive on one runway while aircraft do so on the other runways. Familiarization with this method of aircraft operation will be pursued steadily to achieve a yearly capacity of 447,000 arrivals/departures.

At Narita International Airport as well, the globally rare multiparallel takeoff method has been introduced since October 2011 in an effort to realize a yearly capacity of 300,000 arrivals/departures with the two runways currently in service, without risking increases in the noise-impacted zone. Again, familiarization with this method of aircraft operation will be steadily proceed with.

## (4) Strategic promotion of international aviation measures

International activities in the aviation field are many and diverse, ranging from air talks, through safety and security, to air traffic control. According to estimates compiled by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), air passenger traffic is predicted to grow on an annual average of 5.8% over a 20-year period from 2005, with primary impetus from the Asian and Pacific regions, which are expected to grow into the world's largest aviation market in 2025. The ICAO also calculates that a sum of 120 billion dollars (9.84 trillion yen: 82 yen/dollar) will be spent worldwide renovating the air traffic systems, a vital tool of international air transportation, for the next 10 years. It would be important for Japan, located in the promising Asian and Pacific regions, to seek broader presence in the ICAO while proactively responding to leaps in these regions.

Under such circumstances, the International Aviation Strategy Headquarters were inaugurated as part of the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau on July 1, 2012 to drive the strategic and organized implementation of international aviation measures, including those aimed at globally deploying software and hardware infrastructures in the aviation field, such as airport infrastructures and air traffic control systems in which Japan has strengths, staging marketing activities in a joint effort of the public and private sectors, such as hosting public-private seminars in the partner countries, such as Myanmar, and arranging for tours of domestic airport facilities. These and other efforts will be further improved and expanded through collaboration between the public and private sectors.