A new air traffic complexity metric based on dynamical system modelization

Abstract : This paper presents new concepts to address the air traffic complexity modeling problem. Two new geometrical metrics have been introduced and have been found very useful to capture typical features of traffic complexity. The covariance metric is very adapted to identify disorder in a set of speed vectors and can be applied for en route airspace (en route airspace is the airspace between airports). Similarly, the Koenig metric identifies easily the curl movement organizations and can be applied to areas around airports where air traffic control procedures impose turns on aircraft trajectories.