Modeling and Simulation of Air Traffic and Changes in the Northern Pacific Airspace: Investigation of the Effects on System Performance

This paper presents the details of research with the purpose of investigating the effects of an RNP-based reduction in separation standards in the Northern Pacific airspace. This is accomplished through the development of a simulation model which consists of three distinct modules. Factors such as weather, traffic volume, minimum separation standards, and individual aircraft characteristics are considered in simulating air traffic crossing the Pacific Oceanic Airspace. Various scenarios reflecting possible future system changes are simulated for comparison, and results and analysis are presented. It is concluded that both increasing the percent of traffic to which reduced separation standards are applied and decreasing the longitudinal separation standard result in improvements in several key performance measures.