Airport noise modelling and aircraft scheduling so as to minimize community annoyance

A mathematical model of the annoyance created at an airport by aircraft operations is developed. The model incorporates population distribution considerations around an airport and the annoyance caused by aircraft noise. The objective function of this model corresponds to seeking to minimize total population annoyance created by all aircraft operations in a 24-hour period. Several factors are included in this model as constraint relationships. Aircraft operations by type and time period are upper bounded. Demand for flight services is incorporated by including lower bounds on the number of operations by type of aircraft, runway used and time period. Also upper bounds on the number of operations for each runway are included. The mathematical model as formulated is recognized as corresponding to a nonlinear integer mathematical programming problem.The solution technique selected makes use of a successive linear approximation optimization algorithm. An especially attractive feature of this solution algorithm is that it is capable of obtaining solutions to large problems. For example, it would be feasible to attempt the solution of problems involving several thousand variables and over 500 linear constraints. This suggested solution algorithm was implemented on a computer and computational results obtained for example problems.