Evaluation of an Integrated Traffic Flow Management Decision Making Approach

Traffic flow management in the United States is currently accomplished through a varied collection of controls such as miles-in-trail restrictions, playbook reroutes, air-space flow programs, and ground delay programs that are implemented independently of one another. An integrated traffic flow management decision-making approach that sequentially schedules and reroutes flights according to actual and forecast weather-induced airspace capacity constraints is described. The study tests the integrated system under 80 six-hour, fast-time simulation experiments. The authors describe the overall decision-making approach, discuss the implemented models, flight schedules, weather scenarios, and airspace capacity constraints, and present results of fast-time simulations used to explore trade-offs between optimization and heuristic-based models, strategic versus tactical flight controls, and system versus fleet preferences.