Anyone in the transport business will have followed the plume of volcanic ash from Iceland with particular interest. Doubtless there will be enough post mortems on the current kerfuffle to keep journalists scribbling for months, but this eruption of interest just might concentrate too closely on the specific circumstances of airliners flying through volcanic dust.
The world could probably adjust to life without cheap flights for the Easter holidays. After all, much to the regret of those of us who discovered some time ago (Comment, 21 October 2009) that railways are a great way of getting around Europe, people suddenly flocked on to trains. If pushed, and given time to work on the logistics, even supermarkets might find ways to carry such truly essential commodities as flowers grown in Africa to the UK.
When considering how to respond to the current chaos, we might want to bear in mind that other disruptions in technology could match recent events and perhaps even hit all modes of transport simultaneously. The technology in question is the world's global positioning system (GPS), the array of satellites that we increasingly rely on for just about anything that moves (see Transport that knows its place, Comment, 12 January 2010).
To be more specific, the concern is about the whole notion of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). GPS is just one approach to using satellites to tell us where we are. The worry is that either some natural event - the Sun having a hissy fit, for example - or a deliberate attack, could jam the satellites' signals or the receivers. If that happens, then it will not only be aircraft that go nowhere. You could say that nothing moves without GNSS: it has applications in rail, sea, land and air transport.
Transport's dependence on GNSS has not escaped the engineering community. Earlier this year, the Digital Systems Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) held a packed event on "GPS Jamming and Interference: A Clear and Present Danger," at the National Physical Laboratory. One speaker, Professor Martyn Thomas, talked about a study that the Royal Academy of Engineering is conducting on GPS vulnerability. This study, which brings together experts from across the UK, is due to report in June.
The Royal Institute of Navigation and the Institute of Engineering Surveying and Space Geodesy are also on the case, with a conference planned for later this year in Croatia (if the delegates can get there).
It is clear that GNSS is big business. The details of a workshop that the Digital Systems KTN is sponsoring in London next month describe a market for the space industry alone that "is likely to grow from £160 billion in 2008 to at least £400 billion by 2030". Add the bits that use GNSS and this is a massive industry.
The concern about the reliability of GNSS seems to be that if we rely on just one system, the network of GPS satellites, without, for example, having a ground-based backup, then we are all vulnerable. It might not be quite the same headline-grabbing disruption that volcanic dust has inflicted on air travel, but it would be unwise to ignore the potential for GPS disruptions to cause chaos.
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