11 Example 11: Major Airport

Major Airports are typically especially complex interchange points. We consider an example in summary below.

• There are two physically separate termini groups for Heathrow, with separate access by public transport: 'Heathrow Airport' and 'Heathrow Terminal 4'.'
  • 'Heathrow Airport' contains sub areas for 'Terminal 1', 'Terminal 2', 'Terminal 3', ' Terminal 123 Underground Station', 'Terminal 123 Heathrow Express Station', ' Terminal 123 Bus Station', 'Terminal 123 Coach Station', and a number of bus and coach stops and taxi ranks.
  • 'Heathrow Terminal 4' contains sub areas for 'Underground Station', 'Heathrow Express Station' and a number of bus and coach stops and taxi ranks. It is a physically separate location from Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, & 3.

To model this in NaPTAN we might use:

• An NptgLocality 'Heathrow' and another 'Heathrow Terminal 4' to which all of the stops and stop areas can be assigned.
• Each of the four Terminals can be represented in NaPTAN by a StopArea that groups the various public entrances to each Terminal Building.
• For 'Heathrow Airport' a 'GAIR' group is used to group terminals1, 2 and 3.
  • The 'Underground Station' for 'Heathrow Terminal 123' can be represented by a 'GTMU' StopArea that groups the sub-surface entrances to the station.
  • The 'Heathrow Express Station' for 'Heathrow Terminal 123' can be represented by a 'GRLS' StopArea that groups the sub-surface entrances to the rail station.
  • The Coach station for 'Heathrow Central' can be represented by a GBCS' StopArea that groups the individual bays in the coach station (adjacent to Terminal 3).
  • The Bus Station for 'Heathrow Central' can be represented by a StopArea that groups the individual stops/bays in the bus station and the bus station entrances.
  • Outside each terminal there are a number of bus and coach stops used by local and rail-link buses. These are not considered part of the Terminal groupings as they are marked stops on the airport road network.
• For the 'Terminal 4' area, a similar set of mode stop areas.
  • The 'Underground Station' for 'Terminal 4' can be represented by a StopArea that groups the sub-surface entrances to the station.
  • The 'Heathrow Express Station' for 'Terminal 4' can be represented by a StopArea that groups the sub-surface entrances to the rail station.

Figure 0­25 and Figure 0­26 show a partial stop hierarchy for Heathrow.

Figure 0­25 - Example 11a: Partial Stop Hierarchy for Heathrow Airport Terminals 123

Figure 0­26 - Example 11b: Partial Stop Hierarchy for Heathrow Terminal 4