London Gatwick has created a new geospatial platform using Esri’s ArcGIS to support multiple operational areas at the airport, including engineering and environmental services. The system is already making engineering and construction works safer by reducing accidental strikes on buried utilities and enabling better management of the airports biodiversity.
London Gatwick is one of the busiest single runway airports in the world supporting 55 movements an hour and also holds the world record for most aircraft movements in a single day at 906. Over 40 million passengers travelled through the airport in 2023.
The geospatial platform contains critical infrastructure information spanning the 70-year history of the airport, including BIM, CAD, utilities, environmental, aerial photography and legacy data. By integrating all spatial data into a single view, combined with advanced spatial analysis tools, mobile apps and dashboards, the Esri platform provides new insights to support better collaboration and decision-making across the airport.
Insights from the GIS allow London Gatwick to plan works around any environmentally sensitive sites to minimize impact and seek ways to bring additional benefits, such as improving biodiversity. The embodied carbon data allows users to see the carbon ‘price’ of assets, supporting sustainability decisions by showing the potential carbon emissions of demolitions or new construction.
