Comparative Analysis of Departure Metering at United States and European Airports

Sandeep Badrinath (1) , Hamsa Balakrishnan (1) , Ji Ma (2) , Daniel Delahaye (2)

1 MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2 ENAC - Ecole Nationale de l'Aviation Civile

Departure metering has the potential to mitigate airport surface congestion and decrease flight delays. This paper considers several candidate departure metering techniques, including a trajectory-based optimization approach using a node-link model and three aggregate queue-based approaches (a scheduler meant to represent NASA's Airspace Technology Demonstration-2 (ATD-2) logic, an optimal control approach, and a robust control approach). The outcomes of these different approaches are compared for two major airports: Paris Charles De Gaulle airport (CDG) in Europe and Charlotte Douglas International airport (CLT) in the United States. These two airports have similar aggregate demand and capacity, but the banking of demand at CLT leads to congestion, resulting in higher taxi-out delays and more potential for departure metering at CLT. Stochastic simulations are used to show that departure metering with the robust control approach best accommodates operational uncertainties, and that departure metering yields higher taxi-out time savings at CLT compared to CDG, irrespective of the approach. Nomenclature ∆t = Time step ∆v = Speed increment s = Minimum taxi separation distance V min = Minimum allowed taxi speed V max = Maximum allowed taxi speed N∆t = Maximum allowed holding time, N a for arrivals and N d for departures

Mots clés: Airspace; Air traffic Management; Air traffic control

Domaines: Optimisation et contrôle [math.OC]

Sandeep Badrinath, Hamsa Balakrishnan, Ji Ma, Daniel Delahaye. Comparative Analysis of Departure Metering at United States and European Airports. Journal of Air Transportation, 2020, 28 (3), ⟨10.2514/1.D0179⟩. ⟨hal-02617029⟩