Helsinki Airport was one of the early airport environments where AMORPH.aero demonstrated how passenger flow simulation and forecasting could support both operational and long-term airport planning.
As the first trial partner in the EU-funded AERFOR project, Finavia worked with AMORPH SYSTEMS to implement AMORPH.aero at Helsinki Airport and explore how simulation could provide a forward-looking view of passenger demand and terminal processes.
The objective was to give airport teams greater visibility into how passenger flows and processing demand were expected to develop — supporting capacity planning, resource allocation and terminal operations.
The Helsinki implementation became an important milestone in the development of AMORPH.aero and demonstrated how simulation and forecasting could complement real-time operational information with a view of expected future conditions.
Helsinki Airport
Operated by Finavia, Helsinki Airport is Finland’s main international airport and an important hub for European and long-haul traffic.
For Finavia, increasing capacity was not simply a question of expanding airport infrastructure. Efficient use of existing facilities, effective resource planning and maintaining a high level of passenger service were equally important.
This created a strong use case for simulation and forecasting: understanding how passenger demand could develop across terminal processes and using that information to support both operational and longer-term planning.
Amorph Systems in Stuttgart, Germany, has proven to be a trusted international partner offering professional software solutions and consulting services for air and ground transportation, logistics and high-tech manufacturing. Its portfolio includes advanced control, simulation, forecasting and optimization solutions, allowing our clients to better manage and plan their business operations. Besides the state-of-the-art control and modeling techniques, these solutions require sophisticated visualizations and user interfaces fully integrated with the customer’s IT systems. With AMORPH.aero, Amorph Systems offers an aviation-specific platform tailored to the needs of airports, from planning to operations, taking the rising amount of available data into account.
The AERFOR-Project is granted within the European Union’s HORIZON 2020 SME Instrument phase 2. The main targets of the project are to show the capabilities of AMORPH.aero, the operational simulation platform, to airports and to develop AMORPH.aero into an innovative standard software solution for further and strengthened commercialization within the European and International market. Various partners from the aviation industry such as Finavia, Fraport AG, Zurich Airport and the DLR are part of the project.
Finavia was the first AERFOR trial partner. The project in Helsinki consisted of various areas from operational simulation to support terminal operations managers to planning solutions for short-, mid-, and long-term planning. The base installation of AMORPH.aero at Finavia helped to further standardize the solution and implementation process. With additional functionalities, the project achieved a groundbreaking solution which is the first of its kind. In the future, this will also include various use cases on top of operational control, like advertising and retail and thereby, Amorph Systems and Helsinki Airport together will show the full capabilities of AMORPH.aero.
The AERFOR Project
AERFOR was supported through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 SME Instrument Phase 2 and focused on demonstrating and further developing the capabilities of AMORPH.aero for airport simulation, forecasting and planning.
The project brought together aviation organizations including Finavia, Fraport AG, Zurich Airport and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), providing different airport environments and operational requirements for evaluating the platform.
As the first AERFOR trial partner, Finavia provided an important real-world environment for implementing and further developing AMORPH.aero at Helsinki Airport.
From Operational Simulation to Airport Planning
At Helsinki Airport, the AERFOR implementation covered several planning horizons and operational use cases.
AMORPH.aero was used to support operational simulation for terminal operations as well as short-, medium- and long-term planning. The objective was to provide airport teams with a forward-looking view of passenger demand and terminal processes rather than relying only on current operational conditions.
The implementation also contributed to the further development and standardization of AMORPH.aero, helping establish a more reusable platform and implementation approach for different airport environments.
For Finavia, the project created a foundation for using simulation and forecasting to support capacity planning, resource allocation and terminal operations.
What the Project Partners Said
The Helsinki Airport implementation demonstrated how simulation and forecasting could support different levels of airport planning and operations. After the AERFOR trial, representatives from AMORPH SYSTEMS and Finavia reflected on the project and its objectives.
“The installation at Helsinki Airport has shown the full potential of simulation through all stages of operational and planning processes. We are delighted about this fruitful partnership with Finavia, which shows a similar mindset in being creative and innovative. Finavia wants every day to improve life for its passengers, so we do for our customers. The created solution is a milestone and will play a key role at Helsinki Airport to improve their daily operations and in a long-term, by added flexibility, a significant business value. Together we already made an impressive journey and I am very curious about what is going to come in the future.” Andreas Hofmann, Director Business Development at Amorph Systems
“From the outset, it has been a very ambitious journey with the purpose of building us a capability to see into the near and more distant future, and utilize this capability for better capacity planning, resource allocation, terminal operation and more relevant passenger communication. To fulfill these expectations across multiple dimensions would not have been possible without the committed and highly talented Amorph team, with whom we had the privilege to work with. Now, we have a strong solution running, with a truly inspiring roadmap that will hopefully take the Helsinki Airport experience to new and unseen heights.” Eero Knuutila, Head of Service Development at Finavia
From the First Trial to Continued Development
The AERFOR implementation marked an early stage of the collaboration between Finavia and AMORPH SYSTEMS at Helsinki Airport.
Over the following years, the passenger flow solution continued to evolve alongside changes in the terminal environment and operational requirements. Forecasting capabilities were further developed to support passenger flow and queue predictions and provide relevant information to different airport stakeholders.
The Helsinki Airport story therefore extends beyond the initial AERFOR trial, demonstrating how passenger flow forecasting can evolve as airport processes, infrastructure and operational requirements change.
Read how passenger flow prediction at Helsinki Airport continued to evolve → HERE