Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the country’s busiest airport. To accommodate an increasing number of travelers, STV, through the company’s Aviation + Multimodal practice, is providing design services to the Clark Construction/Atkinson Construction/Technique Construction Group (CAT JV) design-build team, which is developing a 700-foot tunnel extension to the existing Plane Train automated people mover (APM) beyond the airport’s domestic baggage claim terminus station.

The extension will create a more efficient train turn-around operation, allowing for a significant reduction in train headway. By reducing headway, the APM will increase passenger capacity by enabling more frequent service. As a result of that increase in service, STV is renovating the existing ‘Plane Train’ Terminus Station, planning and designing a new multi-level west vertical transportation core, with increased vertical circulation element capacity – escalators and elevators – to deliver passengers from the station platform to the main terminal boarding/ground transportation access  level. The firm is also improving the station’s east vertical core by adding an ADA elevator to provide an equivalent path of travel for disadvantaged passengers coming from the airport’s concourse mall, which runs in parallel to the Plane Train system.