UK Department for Transport Seeks C++ Developer to Maintain Airport Passenger Forecasting Model

Summary

The UK's Department for Transport is offering up to £100,000 over three years to hire a C++ programmer to maintain and support the National Aviation Passenger Allocation Model (NAPAM), a critical forecasting tool that predicts passenger airport choices across 29 UK airports and four major international hubs. The model, consisting of approximately 10,000 lines of C++ code in a Microsoft .NET environment with Excel integration, uses passenger survey data, transportation costs, and airport capacity information to conduct iterative calculations that inform aviation planning.

The procurement highlights a broader challenge facing government technology infrastructure: the need to maintain legacy systems written in older programming languages. With the position budgeted at £100,000 and described as part-time work, the successful candidate will provide technical support and collaborate with transport modelers, economists, and analysts to develop and maintain NAPAM. The model has been in use since at least 2010 and has undergone multiple revisions, most recently in 2024, with previous maintenance work contracted to consultancy firms like Jacobs.

This case exemplifies a common issue in public sector technology: aging but essential systems that require specialized expertise to keep operational, particularly as many industries move away from C and C++ toward memory-safe alternatives.

• NAPAM has been operational since 2010 with multiple revisions in 2017, 2022, and 2024, demonstrating long-term reliance on aging infrastructure