Effect of T-TMA on Capacity and Delay at Los Angeles International Airport

Abstract

Free Flight Phase 1 (FFP1) is an FAA program for improving the performance of the National Airspace System (NAS) through the deployment of advanced technologies for air traffic management. In addition to the deployment activities, FFP1 includes a significant evaluation component, which faces a significant hurdle. A plethora of factors—weather, demand, enhancements to the NAS infrastructure not related to FFP1, facility outages, and so on—may also cause changes in NAS performance. It is necessary to normalize for these factors in order to determine the effect of FFP1. Normalization procedures to isolate the impact of the implementation of an FFP1 technology—the Terminal Area Traffic Management Advisor (T-TMA)—are documented at the Southern California TRACON, where it is used for controlling traffic into Los Angeles International Airport. Two examples of normalization are presented. One examines the effect of T-TMA on airport arrival capacity, and the other looks at arrival delay. The results, although preliminary given the short time since implementation, are consistent: it appears that capacities have increased and delays decreased as a result of the deployment of the tool. Moreover, the magnitudes of the delay reductions and capacity increases are consistent.

Modeling Probability Distributions of Primary Delays in the National Air Transportation System

“…The first category includes studies that estimate the relationship between delay as the dependent variable and one or more explanatory (independent) variables. The methods used in these studies spanned a wide range, including regression (6-8), censored regression (9), the simultaneous equation model (10), nested logit (11), the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model (12,13), and multivariate adaptive regression splines models (5,14). Other studies used Bayesian networks to model the probabilistic relationships among components of flight delays and various factors affecting delays (15)(16)(17).…”

Econometric Analysis of U.S. Airline Flight Delays with Time-of-Day Effects

“…Figure 1 Deterministic queuing diagrams are applied to calculating the queuing delays (t). Hansen et al discuss details of the calculation procedure (3). Basically, for a given day and airport, the input and output curves are constructed on the basis of quarter-hour flight demand and arrival capacity, then deterministic queuing delay is calculated as the area between the two curves.…”

Going South?

“…Deterministic queuing diagrams were used as the basis for the queuing delay calculation. The procedure has been discussed elsewhere (7 ). The input and output curves were constructed on the basis of quarterhour flight demand and arrival capacity at each of the 32 benchmark airports.…”