Royal Schiphol Group aims to operate the most sustainable airports in the world by 2050. At the same time, we wish to make better use of the capacity at our airports and guarantee safety. Making all vehicles and associated processes on airside both sustainable and autonomous will contribute to this. In order to achieve this goal, we have launched a programme called Autonomous Airside Operations.
We anticipate that by 2050, the daily operations on the apron at the airports that form part of Royal Schiphol Group will have changed significantly. By then, all vehicles will have been replaced by an interconnected fleet of self-propelled (autonomous), emission-free vehicles and all associated processes will be automated. This includes sustainable taxis as well as baggage and passenger transport, for example. It might be hard to imagine what the airport of the future will look like and how different processes are connected. We have therefore developed an animation in which we travel forward to 2050 and see what the airport operations might look like at that point.
By means of the programme, we are developing this vision further. We are doing this gradually and in close cooperation with all airport partners and Schiphol, Rotterdam The Hague Airport and Eindhoven Airport. The ongoing autonomous baggage transport trial is part of this programme. In this early phase, we are focusing on knowledge development. Various trials will allow us to combine insights and determine which bottlenecks require particular attention and which steps must be taken in the future.