The results of an operational evaluation of an Air Traffic Management (ATM)-Weather integrated tool, the Ground Delay Program (GDP) Parameters Selection Model (GPSM), are presented. A shadow evaluation was conducted in 2011, followed by an operational evaluation in 2012. The execution of these evaluations required collaboration and joint support across various agencies and organizations, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Weather Service (NWS), Mosaic ATM, and MIT Lincoln Laboratory, along with the participation of the National Airspace System (NAS) user community. The shadow evaluation in 2011 showed that ground delays issued during the initial GDP could have been reduced by 20% if GPSM's recommendations had been used operationally. These promising results led to an operational evaluation the following year. Despite challenges related to unexpected weather patterns, weather sensor outages, and slow user acceptance, analytical results show that GPSM provided benefits when used in operational decision making. On days where GPSM recommendations were closely followed, ground delays were on average 20% lower relative to days where recommendations were not followed, consistent with expectations set in 2011. The gap between planned and observed arrival rates fell by 29% relative to the preceding three years.
Airport and Runway Configuration Management (ARCM) is an operational prototype decision support tool designed to improve traffic managers' effectiveness in choosing runway configurations and runway assignment policies. ARCM ingests flight schedules, real-time surveillance, and wind forecasts and generates recommended schedules of airport configurations that reduce delays and travel times between the gate and terminal airspace boundary while complying with system traffic flow constraints. The recommendations cover a rolling tactical timeframe of 90 minutes into the future. The webbased ARCM interface displays recommendations and statistics describing the predicted impact of a given configuration schedule on flight operations. The interface is designed to facilitate collaboration between air traffic control tower and terminal area traffic managers and, potentially, flight operators during the configuration planning process. ARCM was tested in a live field evaluation conducted over five three-day periods in January-March 2014 at Memphis International Airport. This paper describes the ARCM tool and details the outcomes of the field evaluation.
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