Interactions between Operations and Planning in Air Traffic Control

Abstract : Air traffic in Europe is predicted to largely increase over the next decades. In such a context, this paper presents a study of the interactions between costs due to ground holding regulation and costs due to en-route air traffic control. With that in mind, a traffic simulator including the computations of regulation delays, aircraft trajectories and air conflict resolution is described. Through intensive simulations based on traffic forecasts extrapolated from 2012 historical French traffic data, regulation delays and avoidance manoeuvres are computed assuming the current regulation or no regulation at all. The resulting costs analysis highlights the exponential growth of regulation costs that should be expected if the airspace capacity and the involved procedure do not change. Compared to this, the costs of air traffic control remain negligible whether regulation is performed or not. The analysis of controllers' workloads however emphasizes the future need to combine automated tools assisting controllers with a regulation better adapted to bigger traffic volumes.