Vojin S. Tosic

A review of airport passenger terminal operations analysis and modelling

The paper reviews research results in the area of airport passenger terminal operations analysis and modelling, including available information about applications of reported methods and techniques. The main sources of information for this review were professional journals and other publicly available documents. The review does not claim to be exhaustive but rather illustrative. It shows that very significant efforts have been made in the last 30 years to produce quantitative tools to aid in airport passenger terminal planning, design, and operations. These efforts have produced some very good results. Additional effort in the systematic, comparative, and critical analysis of existing research results is recommended for more efficient continuation of work in this area.

Terminal airspace capacity model

Abstract The objective of the research described in this paper was to produce a model for the analysis of terminal airspace capacity and the sensitivity of this capacity to the parameters which influence it. The model developed is based on the concept of an expected ultimate capacity and applies to arriving traffic under saturation conditions i.e. a constant demand for service. It is possible to use the model for planning and operational purposes: for the computation of terminal airspace capacity, the separation of aircraft at the terminal entry gates so as to provide maximum capacity, and for heuristic optimization of arriving aircraft trajectories through the terminal airspace. For a sensitivity analysis the model allows for changes in terminal airspace geometry, runway(s) in use, arriving aircraft trajectories, arriving traffic distribution between the terminal airspace entry gates, aircraft type mix, aircraft velocities and air traffic control separation rules.

Air route flow management — problems and research efforts

Some elements of the air traffic system are congested at certain periods because traffic demand is higher than the capacity available. The paper considers the air traffic flow management problem (FMP) on a congested air traffic network. Emphasis is placed on the situation in Europe where congestion exists not only on the network nodes (airports) but also on the links (air routes). It is contended that congestion should be helped by flow management measures. FMP is discussed here and defined in several ways. Different assumptions are proposed as well as different metrics to be used in FMP modelling. Efforts to solve the problem are reviewed and some research directions are discussed.

Developing a generic metric of terminal airspace traffic complexity

This article develops a generic metric for measuring the complexity of a given terminal airspace (TMA). The metric includes static and dynamic complexity, both consisting of the complexity component for arriving and departing traffic. The main objective of the developed metric is as follows: evaluation of particular alternative solutions for airspace organisation and design and related air traffic complexity under the given circumstances, which could be used for planning purposes at the strategic and the tactical level. For this reason, the proposed metric reflects the expected complexity over a certain time period, rather than the current value of complexity. The main factors influencing complexity of a given TMA are: configuration of TMA, which implies among other factors, the number and length of arrival/departure trajectories, the airport(s) runway system capacity, air traffic volume, aircraft fleet mix, spatial distribution of traffic and the air traffic control separation rules. Unlike most other approaches, the one presented in this article disregards the air traffic controller workload issue from explicit consideration, but indicates the level of complexity which could influence the workload that he or she could be faced with under the specified circumstances. The output consists of complexity values dependent of the configuration, i.e. three-dimensional geometry of the given TMA and approach/departure trajectories in it, air traffic volume, aircraft fleet mix and the spatial distribution of traffic. The developed complexity metric has been applied to TMA traffic around London Heathrow Airport, UK.

OPTIMUM RUNWAY EXIT LOCATION

A model to be used to find optimum runway exit location is proposed. The objective was to minimize the cost of taxiing to the terminal area after landing in the case when aircraft pass by this area during landing. This objective is relevant for many airports as compared to the objective usually stated in runway exit location optimization, to increase runway capacity, which is relevant only under saturation conditions. The proposed model is based on the simple searching procedure which shows to be efficient enough for a realistic choice of a variable domain and the value of the discrete searching step. Model inputs are the aircraft type mix in the fleet and the unit taxiing cost and the probability of exit acceptance for each aircraft type. A numerical example of model application is presented.

Homotopy Route Generation Model for Robust Trajectory Planning

Although advance future avionics will enable full compliance with the given trajectory, there are many uncertainty sources that can deflect aircraft from their intended positions. In this article, we investigate potential of robust trajectory planning, considered as an additional demand management action, as a means to alleviate the en route congestion in airspace. Robust trajectory planning (RTP) involves generation of congestion-free trajectories with minimum operating cost taking into account uncertainty of trajectory prediction and unforeseen event. The model decision variables include ground delay, change of horizontal route, and vertical profile (flight level) to resolve congestion problem. The article introduces a novel approach for route generation (3D trajectory) based on homotopic feature of continuous functions. It is shown that this approach is capable of generating a large number of route shapes with a reasonable number of decision variables. RTP problem is modeled as a mixed-variable optimization problem, and it is solved using stochastic methods. The model is tested on a real-life example from the French airspace. The results indicate that, under certain conditions, at the expense of a small increase of total planned costs, it is possible to increase robustness of the proposed solution providing a good alternative to the solutions given by existing conflict-free trajectory planning models.