Effects of Air Traffic Congestion Delays under Several Flow-Management Policies

Abstract

Air traffic delays occur when demand for airports or airspace exceeds available capacity. Consequently, these delay effects can be lessened by increasing capacity or by modifying the air traffic demand. Increasing capacity is an important solution, but it is a long-range option involving major changes such as facility construction, fundamental procedural changes, and improvements in navigational equipment. For short-term decision making a tactical-optimization model can suggest alternative flight plans to reduce delays. However, a tactical-optimization model is extremely complex because of the uncertainty in airport-capacity forecasts, which primarily depend on weather. A practical implementation of a tactical-optimization model must therefore make approximations so that a solution may be computed quickly and be of good quality. A practical model framework for the congestion-delay problem is given; this model framework is a generalization of several other flow-management models. Congested situations are simulated, to compare the practical performance of this model to other air traffic management tactics.