Shaping the future of Digital Towers: Insights from the CANSO workgroup meeting in Budapest

The CANSO Digital Towers Focus Area (DTFA) recently convened in Budapest, Hungary, for a two day meeting kindly hosted by HungaroControl. Their warm hospitality and commitment to open collaboration created the ideal setting to exchange knowledge, address shared challenges, and explore the future of digital tower operations worldwide.

Discussions and takeaways: A global pulse on digital tower implementation

Led by Elizabet Pavlova (Think Research) and Csaba Gergely (HungaroControl), the DTFA brought together ANSPs and industry partners to share progress, challenges, and lessons learned from ongoing digital and remote tower deployments.

Survey responses and roundtable discussions highlighted several key priorities for the community:

• The need for standardised terminology across the digital tower environment.
• A stronger understanding of stakeholders’ engagement, training considerations, lifecycle management and system evolution.
• Clearer guidance on managing multi-tower environments and ensuring interoperability.

The group also explored future activities for the DTFA, including educational webinars, enhanced member engagement initiatives, and deeper collaboration with international partners to drive collective progress.

Updating CANSO guidance material

A major portion of the meeting focused on updating and expanding existing CANSO guidance material, with emphasis on:

• Change management and stakeholder engagement.
• Training scope and considerations,
• Lifecycle management best practices,
• Enhanced operational redundancy and system architecture, and
• Comprehensive test environments.

These updates aim to make the document more practical, scalable, and aligned with real world digital tower operations. Members contributed hands on lessons from deployments across Europe and North America, including case studies from DFS, HungaroControl, LFV/SAAB, Avinor, FAA ATO and upcoming contributions from NAV CANADA, ENAV S.p.A., EANS, and NATS.

Exploring future collaborations

The group explored opportunities to strengthen collaboration with the CANSO safety workgroups, the ICAO DAATS Working Group, and external partners including IFALPA, IATA, and IFATCA. These partnerships will help ensure alignment with global standards, and support CANSO members in implementing robust, safe, and interoperable digital tower systems.

What was accomplished

• Agreement on structure and themes for the updated guidance material to be released in 2026.
• Validation of the “lifecycle management” framework and incorporation of member feedback.
• Identification of upcoming educational opportunities, including webinars and the “Speak to an Expert” series.
• Strengthened coordination between ANSPs and technology providers to accelerate the adoption of next-generation digital tower solutions.

HungaroControl’s presentation on its Next-Gen Digital Tower (TWR 2.0) showcased what is possible when innovation meets operational excellence, integrating air and ground surveillance, advanced safety nets, and human centric design to deliver seamless, scalable digital air traffic services

Looking ahead: call to action

As the CANSO Operations Programme prepares for OSC Connect 2026 in Abu Dhabi, we invite experts with knowledge in digital and remote tower operations to join the community.

Your insights and experiences can help:

• Expand and refine the updated CANSO guidance material,
• Educate and mentor others through webinars and case studies, and
• Shape the next phase of digital transformation across global ATM operations.

Together, we can turn shared experience into shared excellence and ensure that digital towers continue to lead the way in operational safety, innovation, and efficiency.

Thank you again to HungaroControl for their exceptional hospitality in hosting the DTFA and to both Elizabet and Csaba for their leadership.