Metrics to Characterize Airport Operational Performance Using Surface Surveillance Data

Abstract

Detailed surface surveillance datasets from sources such as the Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model-X (ASDE-X) have the potential to be used for the analysis of airport operations, in addition to their primary purpose of enhancing safety. This paper describes how surface surveillance data can be used to measure airport performance characteristics in three different ways: (1) Characterization of surface flows, including identification of congestion hotspots, queue dynamics and departure throughput; (2) Development of metrics to evaluate the daily operational performance; and (3) Development of metrics to gauge long-term performance across different runway configurations and operating conditions. The proposed metrics have been developed with active feedback from operations personnel at Boston Logan International Airport, and are therefore evaluated and discussed using this airport as an example. These metrics can provide useful feedback on operational performance to airport operators, and therefore have the potential to improve the efficiency of surface operations at airports.

Throughput reduction on an air-ground transport system by the simultaneous effect of multiple traveling routes equipped with parking sites

“…Figure 10 shows the three-dimensional contour plot of the dependencies of the throughput Q on the distribution probability a and the interval of arrival time T in . It was observed that throughput Q gets sluggish and reaches the plateau as T in increases, thus making a type of sigmoid curve, the tendency of which is similar to the experimental data of the same type of systems in previously reported works [25][26][27]. On the other hand, the dependence of throughput Q on arrival time interval T in does not reach the plateau in between 4 and 2min at around where the parameter α gets close to the ratio of the number of parking sites in the domestic route to that in the whole system.…”

“…In the case of 2 min, an important observation was made; the throughput Q reduces after α reaches the maximum capacity. The overall reduction of throughput Q in between 0.6 and 1.0 seems to be unique because the throughput plateaus after saturation, in similar systems [25][26][27]. Besides, we confirmed from figure 5 that the existence of the delay of staying time is not the critical factor for the overall reduction because we observe it in both cases: with stochastic and with deterministic parameters.…”

Throughput reduction on an air-ground transport system by the simultaneous effect of multiple traveling routes equipped with parking sites

“…Figure 9 shows the three-dimensional contour plot of the dependencies of the throughput Q on the distribution probability α and the interval of arrival time T in . It was observed that throughput Q gets sluggish and reaches the plateau as T in increases, thus making a type of sigmoid curve, the tendency of which is similar to the experimental data of the same type of systems in previously reported works [27,28,29]. On the other hand, the dependence of throughput Q on arrival time interval T in does not reach the plateau in between 4 and 2 min at around where the parameter α gets close to the ratio of the number of parking sites in the domestic route to that in the whole system.…”

“…In the case of 2 min, an important observation was made; the throughput Q reduces after α reaches the maximum capacity. The overall reduction of throughput Q in between 0.6 and 1.0 seems to be unique because the throughput plateaus after saturation, in similar systems [27,28,29]. Besides, we confirmed from Fig.…”

Integrated Control of Airport and Terminal Airspace Operations

“…It uses real-time tracking of aircraft on the surface to detect potential conflicts and to monitor conformance. There is potential, however, to use the data generated by it for surface operations analysis [23], [24] and modeling of aircraft behavior. Reported parameters in ASDE-X include the position, velocity, altitude and heading of each aircraft.…”