Collision Risk Modeling in the Northern Pacific Airspace under Separation Reduction and Improvements in Navigational Performance

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a collision risk model for the Northern Pacific airspace taking into consideration a reduction in separation standards, and enhancements in the navigational performance. New methods are proposed which consider pairwise interactions between aircraft, and a modified application of the Reich collision risk model is introduced. Simulation programs are developed and applied to various scenarios, and results including risk estimates are obtained. This study utilizes components of the Northern Pacific Airspace Cost Effectiveness (NPACE) Study, which uses simulated flight data to investigate the effects of future changes to the airspace. The risk assessment of the Northern Pacific airspace shows that by having more flights with RNP-4 designation and supported by careful management of airspace operations to reduce lateral navigational errors, the enhanced navigational accuracy results in lower lateral overlap probabilities, which lead to lower estimated risk in all scenarios. The research shows that given the assumptions of the study, all scenarios of various RNP percentages and track separation generate a collision risk estimate below the Target Level of Safety (TLS).