The Integration of Governance into Airport Terminal Designs Supporting

Ground Transportation Services

Dr. Dan Wong, PhDAssistant Professor – Aviation Management

College of Business AdministrationPrince Sultan University

The air passenger’s experience is of increasing importance in the development of new or remodeled airport facilities.

Air passengers are expecting a higher level of airport-based customer services.

Airports are expected to have high quality ground transportation services made available for air passengers.

Challenges Facing Airports

Changi Airport - Singapore

Source: http://www.cpgcorp.com.sg/CPGC/Project/Project_Details?ProjectID=1096&TypologyID=1

Changi Airport - Singapore

Source: http://www.airport-technology.com/projects/changi/changi4.html

Changi Airport – New Taxi Lot

Source: http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/two-storey-taxi-deck-set-ease-traffic-changi-airport

Singapore Changi Airport – Terminal 2

Source: http://www.kohmann.ch/asien/singapore.htm

Airport terminal designers have focused on modal efficiency though the use of Level of Service (LOS) methodologies (Correia, Wirasinghe and de Barros 2008).

Non-aeronautical revenues are essential to finance airport improvement projects (Faulhaber, Schulthess, Eastomone, Lewis and Block 2010).

Airport customer service programs have been implemented to increase the airport experience that positively benefits airport revenues (Paternoster 2007).

Focus from Efficiency to Experience

While both cost and travel time are important considerations in air passenger ground transportation modal choices, qualitative factors are also important (Akar 2013; Budd, Ison and Ryley 2011).

Airport ground transportation facility design has not changed significantly over time.

Economic and environmental limitations are now beginning to necessitate that airports encourage the use of airport ground transportation services for airport-based trips.

Impacts on Ground Transportation

Governance is the examination of both formal and informal societal processes in which societal decisions can be, and are made (Aquina and Bekke 1993; Kooiman 1993).

Planning has evolved from a strictly expert-driven approach into one that is of a more collaborative nature (Reeves 2005; Wheeler 2002).

Decision-making in planning is increasingly being made through stakeholder-type engagements (Rhodes 1996).

Introduction of Governance

Airports are dependent upon ground transportation services, yet ground transportation service providers are free to choose where they operate.

One of the largest markets for ground transportation services are at airports (Cooper, Mundy and Nelson 2010).

Prior collaborative efforts between airports and ground transportation service providers have resulted in mutually sustainable service improvement plans (Budd et al. 2011, Humphreys and Ison 2003).

Governance and Transportation

A 2011 study identified that over 90% of the 51 US hub airports surveyed reported having complete or significant control over interactions with taxicab service providers (Wong and Baker 2014).

Over 88% of these airports reported that their taxicab service providers had little to no influence in airport taxicab planning outcomes (Wong and Baker 2014).

Most of those responsible for airport ground transportation planning and management at these airports reported not having prior training in this area.

Barriers to Governance

College Degree – Transportation Planning or Logistics = 7 College Degree – Airport/Aviation Management = 30 College Degree – Public Administration = 12 College Degree – Business Administration = 17 Other College Degrees (e.g., Law, Communications, etc.) = 17 Transportation Regulatory/Enforcement Experience = 3 Taxicab Industry = 1 Airline Industry = 9 Railroad Industry = 1 Other Transportation Industries = 2 No Answer = 1

Background of Personnel Responsible for On-Airport Transport Planning

Although great progress has been made in airport terminal designs to facilitate customer needs, little has changed for airport ground transportation facilities.

Increased focus by airport management on the quality of all airport services will necessitate increased attention towards the airport facilities dedicated to ground transportation.

Airports must move from a top-down form of planning towards a more collegial form of planning requiring closer relationships between airport staff and their transportation service providers.

Conclusions and Recommendations

A considerable amount of time will be required to develop these collaborative relationships between airport management and their transportation service providers, including taxicabs.

The process will provide significant learning opportunities for both airport management and their consultants to understand the local ground transportation operating environment.

The resulting collaborative planning outputs will provide new insights from which sustainable long-term airport ground transportation facility innovations can be developed benefitting air passengers, airports and their transport service providers.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Akar, Gulsah. 2013. “Ground access to airports, case study: Port Columbus International Airport.” Journal of Air Transport Management 30 (0): 25-31.

Aquina, Herman and Hans Bekke. 1993. “Governance in interaction: Public tasks and private organisations.” In Modern governance: New government-society interactions, edited by Jan Kooiman, 159-170: SAGE Publications.

Budd, Thomas, Stephen Ison and Tim Ryley. 2011. “Airport surface access in the UK: A management perspective.” Research in Transportation Business & Management 1 (1): 109-117.

Cooper, James, Ray Mundy and John Nelson. 2010. Taxi!: urban economies and the social and transport impacts of the taxicab: Ashgate.

Correia, Anderson R., S.C. Wirasinghe and Alexandre G. de Barros. 2008. “Overall level of service measures for airport passenger terminals.” Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 42 (2): 330-346.

Faulhaber, Joseph M., Jeffrey J. Schulthess, Andrew C. Eastmond, Scott P. Lewis and Roy W. Block. 2010. Airport Cooperative Research Program Report 36: Airport/airline agreements – practices and characteristics. Washington, DC: Transportation Research Board.

References

Humphreys, Ian and Stephen Ison. 2003. “Lessons from United Kingdom airports on ground control strategies.” Transportation Research Record 1850: 70-78.

Kooiman, Jan. 2003. Governing as governance: SAGE Publications.

Paternoster, Joanne. 2008. “Excellent airport customer service meets successful branding strategy.” Journal of Airport Management 2 (3): 218-226.

Reeves, Dory. 2005. Planning for diversity: Policy and planning in a world of difference: Routledge.

Rhodes, R.A.W. 1996. “The new governance: Governing without government.” Political Studies 44 (4): 652-667.

Wheeler, Stephen M. 2002. “The new regionalism: Key characteristics of an emerging movement.” Journal of the American Planning Association 68 (3): 267-278.

Wong, Dan and Douglas Baker. 2014. “Improving US taxicab services through governance arrangements.” Journal of Air Transport Management 30: 126-131.

References

Dr. Dan Wong, PhDAssistant Professor – Aviation Management

College of Business AdministrationPrince Sultan University

PO Box 66833, Rafha StreetRiyadh 11586

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Phone: +966 11 494 8210Mobile: +966 537545015

E-Mail: dwong@psu.edu.sa

Contact Information