Nowadays the main airports throughout the world are suffering because their capacity are getting close to saturation due to the air traffic which is still increasing besides the economic crisis and oil prices. In addition, the forecasts predict an increase in air traffic of at least 3.6% until 2020. This situation makes very important to come up with solutions to alleviate capacity congestions in the main airports throughout the world. Capacity has been perceived traditionally as the factor to be addressed in airport systems and it is faced through a technical perspective. In this paper we propose to change the mind-set and view capacity of airport systems taking other factors than pure technical ones. The discussion is illustrated with the example of Schiphol Airport.
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This paper focuses on the use of discrete event simulation (DES) as a decision support tool for airport land use development. As a study case, Querétaro Airport (Mexico) is used, due to its rapid growth and the different services it offers. The SIMIO® software was used to carry out a macro-level simulation of the airport’s processes, considering generic process times, flight types and demand schedules. The resulting strategic simulation model can be used to diagnose the current growth situation, analyse the airport's growth potential, and evaluate different expansion scenarios using the available land, including the expansion of the terminal building, cargo operations or MRO. The arrival and departure of aircraft (commercial, cargo, maintenance, aviation school and private aviation) at the airport were simulated to detect bottlenecks for different expansion scenarios, that aim to find an optimal balance between the growth options in the different airport grounds. The objective is to compare the potential growth of different layout expansion possibilities. Preliminary results indicate that land use options have a great impact on the growth potential of the airport and some general aviation activities, such as the aviation school, are interfering with the potential growth of other activities at Querétaro Airport.
Airports represent the major bottleneck in the air traffic management system with increasing traffic density. Enhanced levels of automation and coordination of surface operations are imperative to reduce congestion and to improve efficiency. This paper addresses the problem of comparing different control strategies on the airport surface to investigate their impacts and benefits. We propose an optimization approach to solve in a unified manner the coordinated surface operations problem on network models of an actual hub airport. Controlled pushback time, taxi reroutes and controlled holding time (waiting time at runway threshold for departures and time spent in runway crossing queues for arrivals) are considered as decisions to optimize the ground movement problem. Three major aspects are discussed:1) benefits of incorporating taxi reroutes on the airport performance metrics; 2) priority of arrivals and departures in runway crossings; 3) tradeoffs between controlled pushback and controlled holding time for departures. A preliminary study case is conducted in a model based on operations of Paris Charles De-Gaulle airport under the most frequently used configuration. Airport is modeled using a node-link network structure. Alternate taxi routes are constructed based on surface surveillance records with respect to current procedural factors. A representative peak-hour traffic scenario is generated using historical data. The effectiveness of the proposed optimization methods is investigated.
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Client: European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) The European Institute of Innovation & Technology, a body of the European Union founded to increase European sustainable growth and competitiveness, has set up a number of Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KIC). One of these Communities is on climate change (Climate-KIC). In 2013, Climate-KIC in the Netherlands approved funding for the IMPACT project (IMPlementation & Adoption of Carbon footprint in Tourism travel packages). This ‘pathfinder’ project aimed to assess the viability of and market for a comprehensive carbon calculator. Such a calculator would enable enterprises in the wider travel industry to determine the carbon dioxide emissions, the main cause for climate change, of tourism products and include ‘carbon management’ in their overall policy and strategy. It is generally expected the cost for fuel and carbon will significantly rise in the near en medium future. The calculator will not only cover flights, but also other transport modes, local tourism activities and accommodations. When this pathfinder project finds interest for carbon management within the sector, we aim to start a much larger follow-up project that will deliver the calculator and tools. The IMPACT project was coordinated by the research institute Alterra Wagenigen UR, the Netherlands. Partners were: - Schiphol Airport Group, Amsterdam, The Netherlands- Technical University Berlin, Germany- TEC Conseil, Marseille, France- TUI Netherlands, Rijswijk, The Netherlands- NHTV Breda University for Applied Sciences, The NetherlandsThe project ran from September 2013 to February 2014.
