Comparison of Collaborative Decision Making Processes at Airports in Europe and the U.S. regarding Trajectory Based Taxi Operations from the Perspective of Air Traffic Control

Abstract

The demand for air traffic transportation has constantly been increasing over the past decades. Forecasts predict a continuing steady growth in the near-term for Europe and the U.S., where the aviation systems are already facing capacity constraints. One major constraint is the airport capacity, which influences the performance of the entire aviation system. The objective of this master’s thesis is the comparison of collaborative decision making (CDM) processes at airports in Europe (A-CDM) and the U.S (S-CDM) to evaluate which CDM concept supports the introduction of trajectory based taxi operations preferably. CDM concepts at airports promote information sharing and cooperation of airport stakeholders to optimize the management of traffic flows and reduce uncertainties during ground operations. Trajectory-based taxi operations aim to reduce the temporal uncertainty during the taxi phase by assigning conflict-free taxi trajectories for all aircraft on the airport surface. The evaluation shows that both CDM concepts offer comparable information sharing capabilities, however, differ significantly in the approach used to manage of departure traffic flows. Therefore, different generic departure scenarios are applied as use cases to evaluate how the respective CDM departure management approaches affect the introduction of trajectory-based taxi operations. The walkthrough of these scenarios in the respective CDM environments shows that both concepts support trajectory-based taxi operations. However, A-CDM, which sequences departures strategically by assigning target times as time constraints, provides more stable input data for the creation of taxi trajectories, compared to S-CDM. S-CDM allows much operational freedom to the airlines and relies on reactive departure management. Preliminary research results by DLR and NASA, which provide concepts and tools to support the proposed concept, are explained to assess the feasibility of the desired functions.