Evaluation of a standardized single runway airport model with respect to runway capacity

Abstract

Airports are intermodal interfaces between landside and airside traffic. The accompanied infrastructure is planned for target capacity and the expected use inside the (air) transport sector (e.g. intercontinental hub, feeder airport, secondary hub). It cannot easily be adapted to react on increasing demand when exceeding its capacity. Additionally, in densely populated areas, land needed for expansion is very rare, which leads to developments of new technologies and optimizations to cope with the increasing demand. This paper presents an approach to evaluate the effect of technologies increasing the airport capacity regarding to the runway capacity. In this context, a standardized airport model is developed and implemented. Furthermore, the traffic structure including arrival/departure rates and traffic mix (heavy, medium, and light aircraft) as well as runway infrastructure are analyzed to reflect different characteristics of the operational airport environment. This standardized approach allows a reliable benchmark of different runway capacities and overcome the long lasting argumentation of non-comparability based on specific airport characteristics. Finally, this paper provides a fundamental concept as an essential element of a capacity development roadmap using both current and future technologies/procedures. The first results concerning a standardized airport as representative for all single runway airports show high conformity for the scenario examined.