The air traffic service providers of Australia and Indonesia have started exchanging flight data using automatic dependent surveillance - broadcast for aircraft travelling across their flight information region boundaries.
Airservices and the Indonesian Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) have been discussing the move for some time, with Airservices hoping that it could be a model for further aeronautical data sharing projects in the Asia-Pacific region.
Airservices Australia pioneered ADS-B in the region, becoming the first country in the world to provide nationwide ADS-B coverage when it completed its network of 43 receivers in December 2009. Airservices also assisted Indonesia with its ADS-B implementation, providing project and technical support, when it launched a trial of the technology at the end of 2006.
ADS-B is seen as a cost-effective surveillance tool for Indonesia that controls a large area of airspace with heavy traffic. ADS-B broadcasts an aircraft's call sign, position, altitude, velocity and other data, twice a second.
The partnership is allowing air traffic controllers to precisely track aircraft up to 150nm (280km) inside the other country's airspace using ADS-B. Data from four Australian ADS-B ground stations is transmitted to Makassar air traffic services centre in Sulawesi, while Airservices' Brisbane centre receives reciprocal data from four ADS-B ground stations in Indonesia.
Implementation in early November followed months of extensive testing and support from the International Civil Aviation Organisation and the International Air Transport Association.
"The new arrangement will bring a new level of safety to cross-airspace operations," says Airservices chief executive Greg Russell.
Source: Flight International
