Airport system analysis: a probabilistic risk assessment model

Risk reduction is one of the key objectives pursued by transport safety policies. Particularly, the formulation and implementation of transport safety policies needs the systematic assessment of the risks, the specification of residual risk targets and the monitoring of progresses towards those ones. Risk and safety have always been considered critical in civil aviation. An increase in airport capacity usually involves changes to runways layout, route structures and traffic distribution, which in turn effect the risk level around the airport. For these reasons third party risk becomes an important issue in airports development. Currently, were moving to a wide adoption of Safety Management Systems (SMS) which carries with it a need to undertake risk assessments, either qualitative or quantitative. The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse safety aspects in civil airports. To avoid subjective interpretations and to increase model accuracy, risk information are collected and evaluated in a rational and mathematical manner. The method may be used to draw risk contour maps so to provide a guide to local and national authorities, to population who live around the airport, and to airports operators.