Understanding Airport Access: OLGA Results from Cluj Airport

The H2020 OLGA – HOListic & Green Airports project aimed to reduce the environmental impact of the aviation sector by developing and demonstrating innovative and sustainable solutions across airport operations, mobility and connectivity.

Within Work Package 2 (WP2), the focus was on improving connections between airports and the cities/regions they serve, promoting more efficient and sustainable access to airports. As part of WP2.2, the work focused more specifically on traffic flows and airport access patterns, with particular attention to how passengers and employees travel to and from airports.The works where carried out by University of Zagreb in cooperation with Ericsson Nicola Tesla.

The activities were demonstrated at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, Zagreb International Airport, and Avram Iancu Cluj International Airport, to understand how existing airport and mobility data can support better planning of landside transport and more sustainable airport access.

At Cluj Airport, the analysis combined passenger traffic information with parking data and an employee mobility survey. The analysis showed that passengers generally arrive at the airport around two hours before their scheduled departure. Interestingly, a similar pattern was observed at Zagreb Airport, indicating comparable passenger access behaviour at both locations.

The employee survey provided another important insight. It showed that most airport employees travel to work by private car, while the use of alternative and lower-emission transport modes remains limited. For many employees, commuting distances are also relatively long. These results highlight the potential for future measures that could support more sustainable employee mobility, including improved public transport connections, shared mobility and low-emission vehicles.

The Cluj case also demonstrated that airports can obtain useful operational insights from data they already collect. Parking information, passenger traffic data and employee surveys can help identify peak periods, understand travel behaviour and support decisions related to airport access, parking management and transport planning.

A particularly important outcome of the OLGA activity was therefore the successful replication of the analytical approach at Cluj Airport. While the available datasets differed from those used at Zagreb Airport, the same principles could be adapted to the local context and still provide meaningful results.

Avram Iancu Cluj International Airport played an important role as a fellow airport in this activity, providing the operational, parking and employee mobility data required for the replication study. Together with the other OLGA partners and demonstration airports, this contribution demonstrated how existing mobility data can support more efficient, accessible and sustainable airport operations.