Runway operational quality assurance

Abstract

Aviation is one of the most important industries in the United States and around the world, as it is a major driving force in maintaining a good economy. Every year it becomes an increasingly essential mode of transportation for people and various high-value, lightweight goods, and that increase is expected to continue. Runways are the “bottleneck” in the air transportation process and are a major source of flight delays. To meet the demand for more air traffic, especially for major airports, the capacity of runways needs to be increased while maintaining Target Levels of Safety. The focus of this work is the arrival and landing process of aircrafts onto runways because this is where aircrafts are closest and collision risk is highest. Since this process is inherently stochastic, proposed changes to flight separation standards and runway occupancy times to increase capacity, must be accompanied by a system that monitors the throughput and safety of runways for the approach and landing process. Analysis described in this paper shows that reducing the standard deviation of the runway occupancy time and the air-traffic control buffer both improved safety. These improvements in safety then allowed the reduction in the mean to improve capacity.