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PHOENIX - In an effort to improve air traffic safety, the city of Phoenix has approved the purchase of additional vehicle movement area transponders, or VMATs, for Sky Harbor.
The device allows air traffic controllers to track ground vehicles in real time on runways and taxiways to help prevent incursions and collisions.
Sky Harbor says they were one of the first airports in the United States to pilot VMAT technologies on their tarmacs. The airport currently has five units in operation, and that number will jump to 90 real soon.
What we know:
The Phoenix City Council has approved over half a million dollars for Sky Harbor for the purchase of 85 additional vehicle movement areas transponders or VMATs.
"Once equipped, the information that a vehicle provides is very similar to what an aircraft provides today. So it provides a kind of callsign, a unique identifier. And then you get all the information in terms of speed and velocity of that vehicle," said Chris Zanardi, VP of commercial operations, PASSUR Aerospace.
That information is transmitted to air traffic controllers and even to aircraft cockpits, giving pilots and ground crews real-time visibility of vehicles on the airfield, an added layer of safety designed to help prevent dangerous runway and taxiway conflicts.
Zanardi of PASSUR Aerospace, the company providing VMATs to Sky Harbor, says the company’s technology is already in use at more than 35 airports across the country, with over 2,300 units helping track airfield vehicles.
"We've seen, obviously an increase, you know, recently, given the LaGuardia incident," Zanardi said.
Back in March, a landing Air Canada Regional jet slammed into an airport fire truck on a LaGuardia runway, killing both pilots. A report from the NTSB says a key safety system never warned of the danger because the responding vehicles were not equipped with transponders, making them effectively invisible to the tracking system.
An American Airlines plane taxis at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on November 9, 2017, in Phoenix, Arizona. / AFP PHOTO / Daniel SLIM (Photo credit DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)
Dig deeper:
At Sky Harbor, the airfield is only getting busier. The airport set an all-time monthly passenger record in March with more than 5.1 million travelers, and on March 8 alone, handled more than 1,500 takeoffs and landings, well above its daily average of about 1,300.
In a statement to FOX 10, Sky Harbor says that adding more VMATs to airport vehicles will give air traffic controllers a more accurate real-time view of ground traffic, improving situational awareness and enhancing airfield safety.