Under pressure from local community groups, the Vancouver airport has launched an online tool that allows people track the flight path and noise levels of arriving and departing flights, and instantly file a complaint when those flights violate noise regulations. The website, which uses a Yahoo map and real-time radar data, will help the airport assess its flight path planning and give residents living around the airport a way to have their voices heard.
“We recognize that noise associated with air travel can affect surrounding neighbourhoods,” said Anne Murray, Vice President, Community and Environmental Affairs, Vancouver Airport Authority. “By putting flight and noise information at the public’s fingertips through WebTrak, we hope to promote greater understanding of aircraft operations at YVR and the complex airspace in which we operate.”
The Vancouver WebTrak system, which was developed by Lochardin conjunction NAV Canada, the company that operates the country's civil air navigation infrastructure, is elegant in its simplicty. Planes into or out of the Vancouver airport are displayed dynamically on top of a Yahoo map. Different types of planes get different icons, and are color coded based on whether they are inbound or outbound. Mousing over an aircraft icon displays the type of plane, its altitude and its speed, but not the operating airline (which no doubt makes the airlines happy).
The planes are tracked by radar and their noise monitored by 20 ground stations located around the airport. Decibel levels at each ground station are displayed numerically in a circle that changes color based on intensity, which makes it easy to correlate airplane activity and noise levels. For security reasons, tracking is delayed by 10 minutes, and military and police aircraft don't appear at all.
But the WebTrak does more than just monitor current activity. It stores 30 days worth of data, which means people can go back and see which plane shook the house during dinner, and will even offer suggestions if people still can't identify the offending plane. Mousing over the offending plane brings up an icon you can click through to file a complaint. “People with complaints can look on there and say I was disturbed by a plane at 3 a.m. and I think it was this plane,” says a resident of Surrey, one of the towns near the airport.
Communities in range of Vancouver's airport , one of Canada's largest, have been aggressive in combatting noise since flight paths over the airport were changed in 2007 resulting in more flights over crowded residential areas. The city of Richmond, BC has established an Airport Noise Citizens Advisory Task Force that partners with the airport on noise issues and also acts as a kind of watchdog. In Surrey, a group that calls itself the South Surrey Citizens Against Aircraft Noise has been especially aggressive in pushing for better noise management procedures, and lobbied hard for the WebTrak system. "Planes are not necessarily staying on the courses they’ve been directed to follow," said Surry resident Judy Villeneuve. "They’re cutting across the community because it’s shorter.”
No one is claiming that the launch of WebTrak in Vancouver will actually reduce noise around the airport, but it does give area residents the information they need to keep pushing. “It levels the playing field and it allows everybody to deal with the facts," said Russ Hiebert, a member of the Canadian Parliment, after the website was launch. "Up until now, only YVR and Nav Canada had the information, and there was a belief Nav Canada wasn’t being fully transparent in their disclosure of flights. No longer can there be a dispute.”
Photo: Flickr/Randal Droher
