Future passenger air traffic modelling: a theoretical concept to integrate quality of travel, cost of travel and capacity constraints

Abstract

Systems analysis requires the modelling of possible future evolutions of the global air transportation system (ATS) as alternative quantitative scenarios. The starting point is the external socio-economic scenarios from which the future realised air passenger demand at city pair level is estimated. From the demand networks successively passenger routes networks and aircraft movements networks are derived for future time steps. This paper shows in sample analyses the results of the global modelling approach at city pair level - applied to the socio-economic scenario of Jorgen Randers' '2052' (2012). Global frequency distributions are shown as a function of great circle distance for sample aircraft sizes at future time steps. The continuous modelling at city pair level from the very beginning and the thinking in successive aircraft generations are especially valuable for global climate impact assessments of spatially dependent non-CO2 emissions and needed to tackle the essence of the climate issue of civil aviation.