Contrast and Comparison of Metroplex Operations: An Air Traffic Management Study of Atlanta, Los Angeles,New York, and Miami

Evaluating Concepts for Operations in Metroplex Terminal Area Airspace

“…Outcomes of site surveys were documented in four stand-alone site survey reports [8][9][10][11], one for each site studied. Again, as mentioned earlier, the results of the site survey were summarized through a comparative study presented in [5]. This task supported the first and second objectives outlined in Section II of this paper.…”

“…The first can be categorized as preexisting conditions, whereas the second can be categorized as the air traffic control (ATC) response to those preexisting conditions. The difference between these two types is that different measures can be taken to counter the same set of preexisting conditions, or interdependencies, as illustrated by the metroplex-site survey findings [5,[8][9][10][11]. For example, when the proximity of airports causes interactions between traffic flows to and from different airports, traffic flows may be laterally segregated at one location, e.g., the segregation of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL) and Miami International Airport (MIA) flows in the Miami terminal radar approach control (TRACON); whereas traffic flows at another location may involve traffic at one airport being stopped or requiring prior approval before being released for departure, e.g., departures from LaGuardia Airport (LGA) and Newark International Airport (EWR) merging over the ELIOT fix in N90.…”

“…The ranking list of 12 major metroplex issues is shown in Table 1. Detailed explanation of the process employed to obtain this ranking list can be found in Ren et al [5] and Clarke et al [13].…”

“…Technologies that have an indirect impact on metroplex inefficiencies may also be identified and incorporated into these concepts. A qualitative analysis of the impacts of NextGen concepts and team-proposed concepts was performed, as summarized in Ren et al [5] and presented with greater detail in Clarke et al [13]. From this analysis, it was found that many new concepts could contribute to improving metroplex operations.…”

“…In a previous paper [5], results of identifying the issues and constraints that dictate current practices were summarized through a comparative study. The study surveyed the state-of-the-art in air traffic management of metroplex operations at four metroplexes in the NAS, namely Atlanta (A80), Southern California (SCT), New York (N90), and Miami (MIA), each representing unique characteristics.…”