The Impact of Multiple Runway Aiming Points on Runway Capacity - Technical Capacity of a Single Runway

Abstract

Environmental aspects of air transport are constraining factors for the present and future air transportation system. On the local scale, especially aircraft noise impacts the potential of traffic growth negatively. In order to reduce noise impact of aircraft operations around airports there are several technological and operational approaches. A promising measure to reduce aircraft noise is the adaption of approach procedures. A variety of concepts exist that aim at the adaption of the final approach trajectory, including the concept of multiple runway aiming points in which landing trajectories are optimized with respect to individual aircraft states and environmental conditions. By shifting the individual approach path, the noise carpet generated by the aircraft is shifted as close as possible to the airport0s center. In this paper, an approach to assess the impact of multiple runway aiming points resulting from optimized aircraft landing trajectories on the technical capacity of a runway system is investigated. Therefore equations that allow for the calculation of separation times between the possible aircraft pairings as well as a simulation environment to determine technical hourly capacity of a single-runway system are introduced. For the presentation of the results, different scenarios to assess the impact of the concept of multiple runway aiming points on arrival capacity and on the capacity curve of a single-runway system are investigated