Optimal Metroplex Routing Paradigm for Flexible Flights

A IR transportation system inefficiencies are found when air traffic demand exceeds system capacity. The resulting flight delays thus increase operating costs of airlines, air traffic controllers’ workload, and the probability of passengers missing connecting flights. Moreover, the air traffic demand is expected to continue its rapid growth in the future. The Federal Aviation Administration estimated in 2007 that the number of passengers is projected to increase by an average of 3% every year until 2025. Most of the traffic demand increase will occur in metropolitan areas where there are two or more large airports. The Joint Planning and Development Office defines this kind of region, with a group of two ormore nearby airports for which the arrival and departure operations are highly interdependent, as a metroplex. The New York Metroplex [N90 terminal radar approach control facilities (TRACON)], for example, consists of John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), LaGuardia airport (LGA), and Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), as well as several smaller airports. The study in [1] shows that the traffic in most metroplexes has increased significantly over the past years, and the N90 metroplex has the heaviest traffic demand. Future traffic growth will put current facilities under extreme pressure. Therefore, determining how to reduce delays at metroplexes is critical. The metroplex phenomenon was first studied by Atkins in the San Francisco Bay area and N90 [2]. It was shown that metroplex phenomena would affect the total capacity of the metroplex airport system. In [3],Atkins andEngelland presented ametroplex definition based on several measurable dimensions and proposed an initial framework to study the nature of metroplexes. Wang et al. [4] and Donohue et al. [5] studied the airports in N90 early in 2008, and they considered the status of each airport in terms of the markets served, seat capacity, delays, and other features. McClain and Clarke [6] designed the metric for metroplex clustering analysis. The dependencies and impacts of the three major airports (JFK, LGA, andEWR) in theN90metroplexwere analyzed byAyyalasomayajula and DeLaurentis in [7,8], where several metrics and models were developed to provide insights for planners to formulate policies and strategies that streamline metroplex operations and mitigate delays. Although the metroplex concept and its corresponding metrics have been studied by a few researchers, there are very few of them discussing how to increase the metroplex efficiency and reduce the total delay. In this Note, an integrated flexible flight operation simulation platform is introduced, which consists of multiple functional modules such as routing, scheduling, flexible flight selection, and flexible flight candidate plan estimation. Particularly, the routing module is described in detail. The metroplex routing algorithms are implemented by constructing a network data structure from the waypoints (navigational aids, arrival fixes, metering fixes, etc.) and jet routes. Two algorithms are applied with and without the en route traffic congestion constraint, respectively. To the authors’ best knowledge, this work is among the very first integrations of the complete flexible flight operation simulation platform with multiple well-developed NASAand university-developed tools. The rest of this Note is organized as follows. The second section, Sec. II, introduces the concepts of the metroplex and flexible flights. The overview of the integration platform and its functional modules is also presented. Section III shows how the network data structure is established and themetroplex routing algorithms with/without traffic congestion constraints are applied. Section IV shows the simulation results of the N90 metroplex, and Sec. V concludes the Note.