Some effects of aircraft arrival sequence algorithms

Although various airport landing sequencing algorithms have been considered in the literature, little work has been done in comparing their effects on Air Traffic Control, especially against first-come first-served (FCFS) runway sequences, the method most widely used in practice. This paper compares a number of such algorithms using a discrete-event simulation model of an airport with a single landing runway. Statistical methods are used to test for effects of sequencing algorithm, delay-sharing strategy, arrival rate and wake-vortex mix. Little benefit to delay, or stability of sequencing advice, is found from advanced sequencing when small changes are made to inputs calibrated to a specific airspace. Advanced sequencing improves landing rate, compared with FCFS sequencing, only when aircraft arrival rate is greater than maximum runway landing rate, and wake-vortex mix is sufficiently varied. Constrained position shifting constraints limit these improvements and it is shown that deterministic optimal techniques may actually be sub-optimal in a dynamic environment. Our main conclusion is that FCFS is a robust method under many conditions.     

有等待席位限制的基于终端区系统运行效能的枢纽机场最优跑道设计算法

根据枢纽机场实际终端区系统瓶颈和航空公司及旅客的关键需求,利用随机服务系统理论,分析了有等待席位限制的枢纽机场终端区的空域结构、飞行、管制状况,建立其运行模型,能根据相关参数计算航班滞留时间、队长和空闲跑道数等有用指标;再进一步应用系统运行效能理论,成功地建立了枢纽机场的最佳跑道设计算法,算法对枢纽机场跑道建设规划有较大的理论意义和参考应用价值,实践中已经得到应用.     

Scatter Search and Bionomic Algorithms for the aircraft landing problem

The problem of deciding how to land aircraft approaching an airport involves assigning each aircraft to an appropriate runway, computing a landing sequence for each runway and scheduling the landing time for each aircraft. Runway allocation, sequencing and scheduling for each aircraft must ensure the scheduled landing time lies within a predefined time window and meet separation time requirements with other aircraft. The objective is to achieve effective runway use.In this paper, the multiple runway case of the static Aircraft Landing Problem is considered. Two heuristic techniques are presented: Scatter Search and the Bionomic Algorithm, population heuristic approaches that have not been applied to this problem before.Computational results are presented for publicly available test problems involving up to 500 aircraft and five runways showing that feasible solutions of good quality can be produced relatively quickly.     

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.     

Estimating returns to scale of Chinese airport airside activities using the CCR-0-objective RTS method

The returns to scale (RTS) nature of 41 Chinese airport airsides is investigated in this paper. We introduce take-off distance available and landing distance available into RTS estimation. To deal with the existence of multiple optimal solutions when estimating RTS using the CCR (Charnes, Cooper and Rhodes) RTS method in Data Envelopment Analysis, we introduce the CCR-0-objective RTS method. The empirical study shows that all those airsides with two runway operate under decreasing RTS. Those airsides with only one runway either show constant RTS or show increasing RTS.     

A genetic local search algorithm with a threshold accepting mechanism for solving the runway dependent aircraft landing problem

As the demand for air transportation continues to grow, some flights cannot land at their preferred landing times because the airport is near its runway capacity. Extra fuel consumption and air pollution are then caused by the landing delays. Moreover, such delays may possibly yield extra costs for both passengers and airline companies that result from rescheduling transfer passengers and crew members. Consequently, how to increase the handling efficiency of congested airports is a crucial management issue. Building new runways at existing airports is often not feasible due to environmental, financial and geographical constraints. Therefore, devising a method for tackling the aircraft landing problem (ALP) in order to optimize the usage of existing runways at airports is the focus of this paper. This paper aims to develop a solution procedure based on a genetic local search (GLS) algorithm for solving the ALP with runway dependent attributes. A set of numerical experiments were conducted to test the validity of the proposed algorithm based on five test instances created and investigated by previous studies. The numerical results showed that the proposed GLS algorithm can effectively and efficiently determine the runway allocation, sequence and landing time for arriving aircraft for the five test cases by minimizing total delays under the separation constraints in comparison with the outcomes yielded by previous studies.     

PBN下多跑道机场航班起降运行排队方式研究

分析多跑道机场终端区的空域结构、飞行、管制状况,利用随机服务系统理论建立运行模型,对航班起降运行排队方式进行讨论.阐明两种排队方式①联合协作(相互支援);②分列独立(互不支援)的运行特点,并建立数学模型,能根据相关参数得到相应排队方式下航班滞留时间、队长和空闲跑道数等有用指标.在相同条件下,定量比较两种运行方式的航班队列服务质量和系统工作特性参数.结果表明:①比②能够支持更多的航班起降请求并提供更高的服务质量,提供利用现有条件扩充跑道容量和缓解航班延误的方法,能满足航空公司和旅客的需求.有较大的理论意义和参考应用价值,实践中得到应用,值得推广.     

A simple expression for the nucleolus in a special case

We present a simple algorithm for calculating the nucleolus of a game whenever (a) the characteristic function is non-positive, ie. a “cost” function, and (b) the players can be ordered by “size” in such a way that the cost of any coalition is equal to the cost of the largest player in that coalition. The cumulative nucleolus is approximately equal to the convex envelope of this cost function. A numerical and geometric illustration is given for a game based upon Birmingham airport runway costs, where there are over 13,000 players (aircraft movements) of 11 distinct (aircraft) types.     

Scheduling aircraft landings at London Heathrow using a population heuristic

With increasing levels of air traffic, making effective use of limited airport capacity is obviously important. This paper reports on an investigation undertaken by National Air Traffic Services in the UK into improving runway utilisation at London Heathrow. This investigation centred on developing an algorithm for improving the scheduling of aircraft waiting to land. The heuristic algorithm developed (a population heuristic) is discussed and results presented using actual operational data relating to aircraft landings at London Heathrow. This data indicates that our algorithm could have improved on air traffic control decisions in such cases by between 2–5?% in terms of reducing the timespan required to land all of the aircraft considered.     

Delays to Aircraft Serviced by the Glide-Path

This paper considers some of the statistical service, flow and delay problems which arriving aircraft encounter in the glide-path of an airport runway. Mathematical expressions for service time distributions and delays are formulated in terms of the probability distributions of spacings between discharges of the glide-path. In this paper the author also considers some numerical solutions of the average glide-path separation as a function of \(\overline{w}\), the average delay to arriving aircraft, x₀, a minimum glide-path separation and λ the average Poisson flow rate of landing aircraft.     

Digital Simulations of Runway Utilization

Queues of aircraft that form at airports, both in the air and on the ground, are the biggest source of delay in civil air transport operations. The study of these queues is complicated by the fact that the times at which aircraft join the queues are not independent, and also by considerable diurnal fluctuation of traffic.This paper describes an approach, primarily through simulation of idealized models, on a digital computer. The object of the work was to obtain insight into the behaviour of runway queues rather than to imitate the activity of a particular airport. The models used assume that the arrival times at the queues are the result of a scheduled pattern being disordered through aircraft being independently early or late. Such an arrival process degenerates to a Poisson process if the discrepancies from schedule are very large, but in practice it is significantly different. Results from 300,000 simulated take-offs and landings are given.     

Developments in operational research: R.W. Eglese and G.K. Rand (eds.) Pergamon, Oxford, 1984, vii + 110 pages, $20.00

A practical method of calculating the distribution of the number of customers in the single server queueing system with inhomogeneous arrival rate and discrete service time distribution is proposed. The system is formulated as an inhomogeneous Markov chain in discrete time, leading to recurrence relations for the state probabilities. The recurrence relations are then solved numerically. Various measures of performance, such as mean and variance of the number of customers in the system and virtual waiting time can be obtained from these results. Examples are presented to demonstrate the scope of the method, including time-dependent behaviour of homogeneous queues; cyclic behaviour of queues with cyclic arrival rates; and a previously published study of an airport runway in which the author had to resort to crude interpolation to obtain results. The method can be further extended to provide a reasonably accurate approximation for some systems with continuous distributions of service times.     

基于多元线性回归分析的民用运输机场旅客吞吐量预测

修建第二机场的必要性以及何时开始修建,取决于该地区的机场旅客吞吐量何时达到饱和.从机场旅客吞吐量的可能影响因素出发,分析各影响因素与旅客吞吐量之间的相关性,并以西南地区某枢纽运输机场为例,建立机场旅客吞吐量的多元线性回归预测模型,预测该机场未来年的旅客吞吐量,并利用时间序列法对所得的预测值进行验证.结果表明,该模型能够较准确的预测出机场未来年的旅客吞吐量,为机场扩建或新建第二机场的必要性提供科学依据.     

基于TOPSIS模型的机场网络节点重要度评估

在机场网络中单个机场节点的失效往往会对其他的节点产生影响,特别是关键节点的失效会波及整个网络.准确客观的识别重要节点机场关乎整个机场网络的安全运营.本文分析了机场网络拓扑特性中的度、集聚系数和接近度指标,考虑了机场旅客吞吐量和所在城市人口等交通经济特性指标,使用熵权法确定权重的基础上,应用TOPSIS法构建综合评价体系模型,最后以华东地区机场网络为例进行节点重要度排序.结果表明与单一指标的评估结果相比,该方法更加全面客观的确定不同属性指标的权重,避免了不同指标取值的差异性,使评价更加全面,更符合机场网络实际运营情况.     

机场安全运行监管机制的动态博弈分析

监管机制是否行之有效是决定机场能否长期安全运行的关键所在.针对机场安全运行监管现状,进一步挖掘机场与政府之间内在博弈机理,在引入机场按章运行与违章运行下发生不安全事件概率因子的基础上,构建了机场与政府之间的安全运行动态监管博弈模型,研究了二者在机场安全运行监管过程中博弈双方的策略选择问题.通过对模型混合策略纳什均衡进行...     

Airport runway scheduling

Airport runway optimization is an ongoing challenge for air traffic controllers. Since demand for air-transportation is predicted to increase, there is a need to realize additional take-off and landing slots through better runway scheduling. In this paper, we review the techniques and tools of operational research and management science that are used for scheduling aircraft landings and take-offs. The main solution techniques include dynamic programming, branch and bound, heuristics and meta-heuristics.     

基于动态环境的机场航班实时调度优化研究

在对天气、空中管制等动态环境引起航班延误所造成的各主体利益损失分析及目标追求的基础上,建立单一机场航班动态实时调度微调两阶段优化模型,其中目标函数为追求航空公司、乘客利益和机场保障的经济损失加权和最小化,采用遗传算法优化求解.从最大效率利用终端区空域的角度,评估航班调度方案.具体的算例表明采用本方法能依据动态环境不断优化微调需更新的航班时刻表,达到兼顾各方利益提高机场综合服务水平的目的,证明了方法的可行性.     

Airport runway scheduling

Airport runway optimization is an ongoing challenge for air traffic controllers. Since demand for air-transportation is predicted to increase, there is a need to realize additional take-off and landing slots through better runway scheduling. In this paper, we review the techniques and tools of operational research and management science that are used for scheduling aircraft landings and take-offs. The main solution techniques include dynamic programming, branch and bound, heuristics and meta-heuristics.     

Airport games: The core and its center

An approach to define a rule for an airport problem is to associate to each problem a cooperative game, an airport game, and using game theory to come out with a solution. In this paper, we study the rule that is the average of all the core allocations: the core-center (González-Díaz and Sánchez-Rodríguez, 2007). The structure of the core is exploited to derive insights on the core-center. First, we provide a decomposition of the core in terms of the cores of the downstream-subtraction reduced games. Then, we analyze the structure of the faces of the core of an airport game that correspond to the no-subsidy constraints to find that the faces of the core can be seen as new airport games, the face games, and that the core can be decomposed through the no-subsidy cones (those whose bases are the cores of the no-subsidy face games). As a consequence, we provide two methods for computing the core-center of an airport problem, both with interesting economic interpretations: one expresses the core-center as a ratio of the volume of the core of an airport game for which a player is cloned over the volume of the original core, the other defines a recursive algorithm to compute the core-center through the no-subsidy cones. Finally, we prove that the core-center is not only an intuitive appealing game-theoretic solution for the airport problem but it has also a good behavior with respect to the basic properties one expects an airport rule to satisfy. We examine some differences between the core-center and, arguably, the two more popular game theoretic solutions for airport problems: the Shapley value and the nucleolus.     

A further note on the nucleoous of the “airport game”

This paper represents a generalization of a previous paper on an “airport cost game” to the case of an “airport profit game”. A fee schedule in the airport profit game is obtained by subtracting the payoff vector from the vector of revenues. It is proved that the fee schedule corresponding to the nucleolus is independent of the revenue vector.