Cessna 310/T310C
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Situational Awareness; Confusion; Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Ground Incursion Runway
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors; Procedure
I was plugging into Local to relieve the previous controller as he was beginning to deal with a C310 who called him on the Tower frequency after he was done with his run up in the North Run Up area and said he was ready for departure. He was taxied to the run up area by Ground Control and was never issued a runway assignment as per APA SOP. He taxied out of the pad; onto the active taxiway without receiving: 1) a runway assignment and 2) an instruction to taxi onto an active taxiway. I won't bother you with the details of APA and their confusing procedures and phraseology as it is a long documented problem and I'm quite sure that not everyone takes this issue seriously and so this will never get fixed. The local pilots understand what the procedures are and there is not an issue. The true issue has always been with the itinerants who have no clue as to what or why we do what we do. They just want to do what every other airport in the U.S. does. Management fails to write up the pilots for pilot deviations and controllers working as CIC fail to write up the pilots because no one cares anymore. GET A TEAM OUT HERE TO TRULY FIX THE PROBLEM. Go back to the .65 and issue normal taxi instructions. We need to standardize our procedures to what everyone else is doing.
APA Controller voiced a concern regarding local phraseology with regard to taxi and run-up instructions that frequently result in taxiway incursions especially with aircraft not locally based.