Andrew Cook – författare

Britain is in the grips of an energy crisis: political failure has plunged the country into freezing darkness. Can the retired director of a near-derelict power station save the nation from chaos and disorder?

Black Start is a short story by the British industrialist Sir Andrew Cook CBE and a timely warning about the dangers of short-sighted energy policy and the loss of expert engineering knowledge.

Air traffic management (ATM) comprises a highly complex socio-technical system that keeps air traffic flowing safely and efficiently, worldwide, every minute of the year. Over the last few decades, several ambitious ATM performance improvement programmes have been undertaken. Such programmes have mostly delivered local technological solutions, whilst corresponding ATM performance improvements have fallen short of stakeholder expectations. In hindsight, this can be substantially explained from a complexity science perspective: ATM is simply too complex to address through classical approaches such as system engineering and human factors. In order to change this, complexity science has to be embraced as ATM''s ''best friend''. The applicability of complexity science paradigms to the analysis and modelling of future operations is driven by the need to accommodate long-term air traffic growth within an already-saturated ATM infrastructure.

Complexity Science in Air Traffic Management is written particularly, but not exclusively, for transport researchers, though it also has a complementary appeal to practitioners, supported through the frequent references made to practical examples and operational themes such as performance, airline strategy, passenger mobility, delay propagation and free-flight safety. The book should also have significant appeal beyond the transport domain, due to its intrinsic value as an exposition of applied complexity science and applied research, drawing on examples of simulations and modelling throughout, with corresponding insights into the design of new concepts and policies, and the understanding of complex phenomena that are invisible to classical techniques.

Air traffic management (ATM) comprises a highly complex socio-technical system that keeps air traffic flowing safely and efficiently, worldwide, every minute of the year. Over the last few decades, several ambitious ATM performance improvement programmes have been undertaken. Such programmes have mostly delivered local technological solutions, whilst corresponding ATM performance improvements have fallen short of stakeholder expectations. In hindsight, this can be substantially explained from a complexity science perspective: ATM is simply too complex to address through classical approaches such as system engineering and human factors. In order to change this, complexity science has to be embraced as ATM''s ''best friend''. The applicability of complexity science paradigms to the analysis and modelling of future operations is driven by the need to accommodate long-term air traffic growth within an already-saturated ATM infrastructure.

Complexity Science in Air Traffic Management is written particularly, but not exclusively, for transport researchers, though it also has a complementary appeal to practitioners, supported through the frequent references made to practical examples and operational themes such as performance, airline strategy, passenger mobility, delay propagation and free-flight safety. The book should also have significant appeal beyond the transport domain, due to its intrinsic value as an exposition of applied complexity science and applied research, drawing on examples of simulations and modelling throughout, with corresponding insights into the design of new concepts and policies, and the understanding of complex phenomena that are invisible to classical techniques.

This adventurous story begins at the New York airport where this holiday-maker was departing of the plane carrying his most prized possession, his loving dog called Skipper. Skipper was much cleverer than his owner took him for, Skipper looked down at the cage door and gnawed at the catch until it was released and off he went. His owner had only realised that he had gone when the cage felt incredibly light, Hey, stop Skipper come back his owner franticly shouted. It was no use so hesat down in hope that skipper would eventually see sense and come back, Skipper was always a bit of a trouble maker and today was no exception.