Airservices Australia has taken the wraps off its tender to bring Australia's air traffic control system into the future.
The tender is intended to revamp Australia's air traffic control systems, which are becoming outdated or are at the end of their supportable life, according to Airservices Australia.
The government-owned body hopes the new system will provide safe and efficient tower infrastructure and systems, as well as delivering control tower efficiency and capacity.
The successful tenderer will be designing a tower technology system comprising information systems, hardware, networking and communications technology for four different tower types as well as possibly installing a tower technology system in four new towers at Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra and Rockhampton.
Upwards of 2,000 flights a day will tax the new system at major airports such as Sydney, a spokesperson for Airservices Australia said.
The system will have to undergo extensive testing, the spokesperson continued, including mimicking -- using the system whilst the actual air traffic control service continues to be delivered from an existing facility -- and ghosting -- using the system while an existing facility remains in place ready to take over if problems arise.
"They wouldn't cut across to the new system until everything works," the spokesperson said, adding that despite stringent mean-time-before-failure specifications there will be backups. "These systems tend to be pretty foolproof," the spokesperson said: "In some cases there are up to three backup systems."
"The safety plan would have to go through an internal test and sign-off procedure and then go through CASA (Civil Aviation and Safety Authority)," the spokesperson continued.
In addition to the work covered by the tender, there may be further projects to install the new system in 20 additional towers around Australia, however the successful tenderer will not necessarily undertake the work, and separate project agreements will be created under the contract for any subsequent project.
The request for tender will close on 28 March, and the successful applicant is scheduled to sign the contract at the end of the year, when the design work will begin, according to the spokesperson. Airservices Australia hopes that the system will be finished by the end of 2010 to coincide with the end of construction work on the new towers, the spokesperson added.
The tender briefing has moved from 11 February to 18 February, at Airservices Australia offices at Melbourne Airport.
