Ian, how can you say that the problem has been solved, when you also say that it was not necessary to include provisions for tracking the ac to prevent landing on the taxiway? The information provided by the FAA's Surface Movement Event Service showed the ac was lined up with the taxiway, along with the altitudes, yet this system provided no alert, nor did the systems it feeds data to, ASDEX or in this case, ASSC? How can one provide runway conflict warning when incoming ac are not tracked?
Care to guess who provides these systems? (and the one at SFO?)
U.S. Federal Aviation Administration selects Saab Sensis for Airport Surface Surveillance Capability Program
The Saab/Sensis system does not appear to have provisions for tracking which runway or taxiway the ac is landing, and alert/prevent. As far as I can tell, the Sensis system is really for ground ops, not a combination. How can one provide runway conflict warning when incoming ac are not tracked?
The system at SFO was supposed to be tracking inbound ac to 5nm with option for 20nm, yet it failed to alert the controller. For all we know, the ac could have been lined up on 28L instead of the taxi, what is, or even, is there an alert algorithm?
It was the prototype, and is supposed to be deployed at other airports in the US. Again, it is good that we had a lowest common denominator (airline with history of landing on taxiways) test of the system so that it is fixed and not deployed throughout the network.
It is interesting because NAVCANADA has an ATM ground track management system for tower ops that does track inbound aircraft when the threshold is obscured from tower.