In the frame of an on-going 4-years research project, the Aviation Academy Safety Management Systems (AVAC-SMS) metric for the self-assessment of aviation Safety Management Systems (SMS) was designed based on the Safety Management Manual of the International Civil Aviation Organization and in cooperation with knowledge experts and aviation companies. The particularmetric evaluates three areas, namely (1) the degree of institutionalisation of SMS (design and implementation of processes), (2) the extent of managers’ capability to deliver the SMS processes, and (3) the employees’ perceived effectiveness of the SMS-related deliverables. The metric concludes with a score per area and per SMS component/element assessed, and it is scalable to the size and complexity of each organisation. Results of a survey at 18 aviation companies did not show statistically significant differences in their SMS scores across all three assessment areas but revealed a distance between the area of Institutionalization and the areas of Capability and Effectiveness. Also, differences were detected regarding the scores per SMS component and element within and across companies and assessment areas. The various assessment options offered for the AVAC-SMS metric accommodates the resources each SME and large company can invest in the application of the metric. Even the lowest level of resolution of the SMS metric can trigger companies to investigate further their weaker areas and foster their SMS-related activities. Therefore, the AVAC-SMS metric is deemed useful to organisations that want to self-assess their SMS and proceed to comparisons amongst various functions and levels and/or over time.
As part of their SMS, aviation service providers are required to develop and maintain the means to verify the safety performance of their organisation and to validate the effectiveness of safety risk controls. Furthermore, service providers must verify the safety performance of their organisation with reference to the safety performance indicators and safety performance targets of the SMS in support of their organisation’s safety objectives. However, SMEs lack sufficient data to set appropriate safety alerts and targets, or to monitor their performance, and no other objective criteria currently exist to measure the safety of their operations. The Aviation Academy of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences therefore took the initiative to develop alternative safety performance metrics. Based on a review of the scientific literature and a survey of existing safety metrics, we proposed several alternative safety metrics. After a review by industry and academia, we developed two alternative metrics into tools to help aviation organisations verify the safety performance of their organisations.The AVAV-SMS tool measures three areas within an organisation’s Safety Management System:• Institutionalisation (design and implementation along with time and internal/external process dependencies).• Capability (the extent to which managers have the capability to implement the SMS).• Effectiveness (the extent to which the SMS deliverables add value to the daily tasks of employees).The tool is scalable to the size and complexity of the organisation, which also makes it useful for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The AVAS-SCP tool also measures three areas in the organisation’s safety culture prerequisites to foster a positive safety culture:• Organisational plans (whether the company has designed/documented each of the safety cultureprerequisites).• Implementation (the extent to which the prerequisites are realised by the managers/supervisors acrossvarious organisational levels).• Perception (the degree to which frontline employees perceive the effects of managers’ actions relatedto safety culture).We field-tested these tools, demonstrating that they have adequate sensitivity to capture gaps between Work-as-Imagined (WaI) and Work-as-Done (WaD) across organisations. Both tools are therefore useful to organisations that want to self-assess their SMS and safety culture prerequisite levels and proceed to comparisons among various functions and levels and/or over time. Our field testing and observations during the turn-around processes of a regional airline confirm that significant differences exist between WaI and WaD. Although these differences may not automatically be detrimental to safety, gaining insight into them is clearly necessary to manage safety. We conceptually developed safety metrics based on the effectiveness of risk controls. However, these could not be fully field-tested within the scope of this research project. We recommend a continuation of research in this direction. We also explored safety metrics based on the scarcity of resources and system complexity. Again, more research is required here to determine whether these provide viable solutions.
While tourism and air transport are recovering from the impacts of the Covid pandemic, it seems timely to draw a synthetic view of future stakes combining the following topics: the greenhouse gas emissions scenarios for tourism, regarding which recent work has improved their understanding; the climatic impact of aviation, almost 60% of which is due to non-CO 2 emissions; alternative fuels (biofuels, E-fuels, hydrogen) and engine designs (fuel cells...) which are complex and controversial issues, and whose potentials should be assessed regarding their timing, environmental impacts, and their ability to meet long distance travel requirements. This paper analyses the extent to which the new options regarding fuels and engines can help decarbonize tourism and air transport. The answer is that they can partly contribute but do not render obsolete previous work on substitutions between types of tourism (short versus long distance...), between transport modes (ground transport versus air), length of stay, etc. Following this step, the paper deals with the position of aviation players and the type of arguments they use. We conclude on the necessity to make strategic choices among the options to avoid wasting investments.
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Ons voorstel ‘Biobased Sustainable Aviation Fuel’, richt zich op het ontwikkelen van een nieuwe productieroute voor sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs). Hiermee wordt invulling gegeven aan de behoefte van de luchtvaartindustrie om alternatieve productieroutes voor SAF te ontwikkelen. Deze behoefte komt voort uit het verplicht bijmengen van SAF in conventionele kerosine. Ook hebben bestaande routes voor SAFs te maken met oplopende tekorten in grondstoffen. De productieroute in dit project maakt gebruik van vetzuren, waarmee een veelheid van afvalstromen kan worden verwerkt naar brandstoffen. De vetzuren uit dit project worden geproduceerd door ChainCraft uit organische reststromen via fermentatie. ChainCraft is begonnen als startup vanuit Wageningen Universiteit en heeft bewezen per jaar ongeveer 2000 ton vetzuren te kunnen produceren. Met een chemische reactie worden deze vetzuren omgezet naar ketonen. Dit wordt ketonisatie genoemd. Deze ketonen kunnen opgewerkt worden naar SAF, maar kunnen ook andere chemische toepassingen hebben, zoals het vervangen van palmolie. Het keton dat ontstaat is dus een tussenproduct waarmee verschillende markten bedient kunnen worden. Dit is van belang voor ChainCraft dat nieuwe markten voor haar vetzuren wil ontsluiten. De belangrijkste te ontwikkelen stap in deze productieroute is de verbetering en optimalisatie van de ketonisatiereactie. Dit wordt gedaan door de Hogeschool Rotterdam bij het CoE HRTech, binnen het cluster Verduurzaming Industrie en de opleiding Chemische Technologie. Bij de ketonisatiereactie ontstaat calciumhydroxide als bijproduct. Door dit terug te voeren naar het fermentatieproces kunnen de integrale proceskosten verlaagd worden en de milieu impact gereduceerd. Deze verbeterde fermentatie wordt door ChainCraft geanalyseerd. De te verwachten milieubesparing is 67% minder broeikasgasemissies ten opzichte van petrochemische kerosine. De te verwachten productiekosten zijn vergelijkbaar met gangbare SAFs. Naast ChainCraft en de Hogeschool Rotterdam wordt het voorstel gesteund door SkyNRG. SkyNRG is sinds 2010 de wereldwijde leider op het gebied van SAFs.
Client: Foundation Innovation Alliance (SIA - Stichting Innovatie Alliantie) with funding from the ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) Funder: RAAK (Regional Attention and Action for Knowledge circulation) The RAAK scheme is managed by the Foundation Innovation Alliance (SIA - Stichting Innovatie Alliantie) with funding from the ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW). Early 2013 the Centre for Sustainable Tourism and Transport started work on the RAAK-MKB project ‘Carbon management for tour operators’ (CARMATOP). Besides NHTV, eleven Dutch SME tour operators, ANVR, HZ University of Applied Sciences, Climate Neutral Group and ECEAT initially joined this 2-year project. The consortium was later extended with IT-partner iBuildings and five more tour operators. The project goal of CARMATOP was to develop and test new knowledge about the measurement of tour package carbon footprints and translate this into a simple application which allows tour operators to integrate carbon management into their daily operations. By doing this Dutch tour operators are international frontrunners.Why address the carbon footprint of tour packages?Global tourism contribution to man-made CO2 emissions is around 5%, and all scenarios point towards rapid growth of tourism emissions, whereas a reverse development is required in order to prevent climate change exceeding ‘acceptable’ boundaries. Tour packages have a high long-haul and aviation content, and the increase of this type of travel is a major factor in tourism emission growth. Dutch tour operators recognise their responsibility, and feel the need to engage in carbon management.What is Carbon management?Carbon management is the strategic management of emissions in one’s business. This is becoming more important for businesses, also in tourism, because of several economical, societal and political developments. For tour operators some of the most important factors asking for action are increasing energy costs, international aviation policy, pressure from society to become greener, increasing demand for green trips, and the wish to obtain a green image and become a frontrunner among consumers and colleagues in doing so.NetworkProject management was in the hands of the Centre for Sustainable Tourism and Transport (CSTT) of NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences. CSTT has 10 years’ experience in measuring tourism emissions and developing strategies to mitigate emissions, and enjoys an international reputation in this field. The ICT Associate Professorship of HZ University of Applied Sciences has longstanding expertise in linking varying databases of different organisations. Its key role in CARMATOP was to create the semantic wiki for the carbon calculator, which links touroperator input with all necessary databases on carbon emissions. Web developer ibuildings created the Graphical User Interface; the front end of the semantic wiki. ANVR, the Dutch Association of Travel Agents and Tour operators, represents 180 tour operators and 1500 retail agencies in the Netherlands, and requires all its members to meet a minimum of sustainable practices through a number of criteria. ANVR’s role was in dissemination, networking and ensuring CARMATOP products will last. Climate Neutral Group’s experience with sustainable entrepreneurship and knowledge about carbon footprint (mitigation), and ECEAT’s broad sustainable tourism network, provided further essential inputs for CARMATOP. Finally, most of the eleven tour operators are sustainable tourism frontrunners in the Netherlands, and are the driving forces behind this project.
PBL is the initiator of the Work Programme Monitoring and Management Circular Economy 2019-2023, a collaboration between CBS, CML, CPB, RIVM, TNO, UU. Holidays and mobility are part of the consumption domains that PBL researches, and this project aims to calculate the environmental gains per person per year of the various circular behavioural options for both holiday behaviour and daily mobility. For both behaviours, a range of typical (default) trips are defined and for each several circular option explored for CO2 emissions, Global warming potential and land use. The holiday part is supplied by the Centre for Sustainability, Tourism and Transport (CSTT) of the BUas Academy of Tourism (AfT). The mobility part is carried out by the Urban Intelligence professorship of the Academy for Built Environment and Logistics (ABEL).The research question is “what is the environmental impact of various circular (behavioural) options around 1) holidays and 2) passenger mobility?” The consumer perspective is demarcated as follows:For holidays, transportation and accommodation are included, but not food, attractions visited and holiday activitiesFor mobility, it concerns only the circular options of passenger transport and private means of transport (i.e. freight transport, business travel and commuting are excluded). Not only some typical trips will be evaluated, but also the possession of a car and its alternatives.For the calculations, we make use of public databases, our own models and the EAP (Environmental Analysis Program) model developed by the University of Groningen. BUAs projectmembers: Centre for Sustainability, Tourism and Transport (AT), Urban Intelligence (ABEL).
