Improvement of Terminal Area Capacity in the New York Airspace

The New York airspace is the most congested in the U.S. air transportation network. Increasing capacity in this area is critical to ensure the balanced growth of traffic across the U.S. This study compares the total measured runway capacity at the New York airports with the achieved throughput of t...

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Main Authors: Donaldson, Alexander D., Hansman, R. John
Format: Technical Report
Published: 2011
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/60973
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author Donaldson, Alexander D.
Hansman, R. John
author_facet Donaldson, Alexander D.
Hansman, R. John
author_sort Donaldson, Alexander D.
collection MIT
description The New York airspace is the most congested in the U.S. air transportation network. Increasing capacity in this area is critical to ensure the balanced growth of traffic across the U.S. This study compares the total measured runway capacity at the New York airports with the achieved throughput of the New York airspace. The comparison is performed for six airspace configurations representing operations under different wind conditions, visibility and relative arrival and departure demand. The comparison shows that in all cases the capacity of the system of airports is lower than the total capacity of the airports considered individually by approximately 20%. This finding suggests that air traffic throughput in the New York area is constrained by shared airspace resources. If these constraints could be removed, these funding suggest that capacity could be increased approximately 20% without any airport infrastructure or procedure changes. An examination of procedures close to the airports is performed to identify fixed constraints. The impact of these constraints is not captured by the empirical analysis because these constraints are always present. This analysis identifies cases where new navigation technologies could be used to reduce the interactions between airports. The greatest potential for improvement is found to be in the lower performing configurations. Therefore procedural changes close to the airports may provide more benefit in reducing the variability of capacity between different configurations, rather than providing large increases in maximum capacity.
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spelling mit-1721.1/609732019-04-09T18:06:06Z Improvement of Terminal Area Capacity in the New York Airspace Donaldson, Alexander D. Hansman, R. John The New York airspace is the most congested in the U.S. air transportation network. Increasing capacity in this area is critical to ensure the balanced growth of traffic across the U.S. This study compares the total measured runway capacity at the New York airports with the achieved throughput of the New York airspace. The comparison is performed for six airspace configurations representing operations under different wind conditions, visibility and relative arrival and departure demand. The comparison shows that in all cases the capacity of the system of airports is lower than the total capacity of the airports considered individually by approximately 20%. This finding suggests that air traffic throughput in the New York area is constrained by shared airspace resources. If these constraints could be removed, these funding suggest that capacity could be increased approximately 20% without any airport infrastructure or procedure changes. An examination of procedures close to the airports is performed to identify fixed constraints. The impact of these constraints is not captured by the empirical analysis because these constraints are always present. This analysis identifies cases where new navigation technologies could be used to reduce the interactions between airports. The greatest potential for improvement is found to be in the lower performing configurations. Therefore procedural changes close to the airports may provide more benefit in reducing the variability of capacity between different configurations, rather than providing large increases in maximum capacity. This research was supported by both NASA and the FAA through agreement number NNA06CN24A and contract DTFA01-C-00030. 2011-02-17T16:43:07Z 2011-02-17T16:43:07Z 2011-02-17 Technical Report http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/60973 ICAT;2011-4 An error occurred on the license name. An error occurred getting the license - uri. application/pdf
spellingShingle Donaldson, Alexander D.
Hansman, R. John
Improvement of Terminal Area Capacity in the New York Airspace
title Improvement of Terminal Area Capacity in the New York Airspace
title_full Improvement of Terminal Area Capacity in the New York Airspace
title_fullStr Improvement of Terminal Area Capacity in the New York Airspace
title_full_unstemmed Improvement of Terminal Area Capacity in the New York Airspace
title_short Improvement of Terminal Area Capacity in the New York Airspace
title_sort improvement of terminal area capacity in the new york airspace
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/60973
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