Murphy's Law" will prevail and tenants will use all allocated space and still need more.
For multi-tenant buildings, marshaling areas are often extensions of the sublease by virtue of license agreements that allow tenants to occupy aprons adjacent to their premises. The tenant gains access to the AOA via an airside service (tug) road, which is contiguous with the marshalling areas. Since many operators use the marshalling areas for breaking down and building up air shipments, it is important to consider the drainage characteristics of the area so as to prevent hazardous substances from entering the natural drainage system as a result of accidental spills within the marshalling zone.
It is important to realize early in the master-planning process the importance of ramp frontage. This may be compared to waterfront real estate. It is a limited commodity and must be used very efficiently. Hence, those buildings which are dedicated to all-cargo, integrated carriers or any other operator with dedicated fleets of aircraft should take precedence to other operators when frontage is scarce. These users will want to maximize their frontage onto ramp areas. Conversely, airline, cargo operations, and freight forwarders handling belly freight need very little ramp frontage, but rely heavily on efficient airside access roads to the terminal.
Equipment Staging Areas
There is often debate on the amount of equipment staging area that should be provided adjacent to the building. Once again, the requirement is highly dependent on the operational characteristics of the users. However, there is the tendency for "Murphy's Law" to prevail, whereby tenants will occupy every square foot that is allocated to them and in the end, need more. There is a basic operational problem with airside equipment staging zones in that they tend to become collection areas for obsolete or broken down equipment, as well as shipping debris that may create FOD. This becomes a supervision problem. Nevertheless, it is a design consideration.