Qualified study on determination of airport apron safety problems: Intelligent transportation systems solution proposals

Airport aprons are environments where too many people act, operate, and intense pressure, perform operations in a short period of time. Hence, danger, risk and unsafe are inevitable in such a stressful environment where the human factor is present. The elimination of safety weaknesses in airport aprons will also be provided by technology. In this scope, it is thought that the safety gaps that can appear on the apron can be closed with the latest technology and intelligent systems. The main purpose of this research is to suggest solutions that can increase the airport apron or ramp safety by Intelligent Transportation Systems. It is predicted that various applications can be proposed within the scope of Intelligent Transportation Systems for these problems by identifying safety problems in airport aprons. In this scope, to collect research data, Ataturk Airport that have the most intensive air traffic and passenger traffic in Turkey and have a critical significance for safety has been selected. In this research, qualitative research approach was adopted and data were collected by semi-structured interviews. As a result of the inductive analysis of the qualitative data, factors that adversely affecting the apron safety were found at Atatürk Airport. A number of Intelligent Transportation Systems have been proposed for the factors that adversely affecting the apron safety.