Abstract
The infrastructures supporting air transport throughout the world in the civil sector are classified as primary-level (large numbers of passengers and goods on both commercial and charter long- and medium-haul flights) and secondary-level (few passengers and goods on general aviation private, short-haul flights). In parallel with primary-level air traffic general growth all over the world and in Italy, the popularity of “individual” nonscheduled general aviation traffic increased in many countries since 1990s. The latter aviation has proved to be a valid alternative to rail and road transport for short-medium distance journeys (100-500 km) for classes of business and tourist passengers. In keeping with the national and international airport system development scenarios, the paper illustrates the results of in-depth analyses aiming to construct an integrated GIS-based Multicriteria Decision Analysis evaluation methodology. It gears towards formulating strategies for the development and streamlining of some existing (51) Italian minor airports and for the right locations for the new hubs required to construct an efficient second-level air transport network (the “highway in the sky”). Different levels of evaluation verify the suitability of airport services and infrastructure (status quo) and the attractiveness of airport hubs given the territorial facilities found in their catchment areas.
Highlights
The infrastructure supporting air transport throughout the world is classified in the civil sector [1] depending on the quantity of passengers and/or goods handled and on the type of activities carried out
The structure of the evaluation methodology we propose is based on a full integration between Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), which allows us to consider a multicriterial data set, and Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS) that implement the spatial/territorial analysis [12, 17,18,19, 21, 23,24,25]
Maps illustrate the results of the implementation for each level of data evaluation, in accordance with the Multicriteria Spatial Decision Analysis (MCSDA) methodology described in previous paragraphs
Summary
The infrastructure supporting air transport throughout the world is classified in the civil sector [1] depending on the quantity of passengers and/or goods handled and on the type of activities (aviation and/or nonaviation) carried out. Primary-level civil aviation infrastructure (airports belonging to the main network of each country) is earmarked for transporting large numbers of passengers and goods travelling on both commercial and charter long-haul and mediumhaul flights. Secondary-level aviation infrastructure (general aviation, regional airports belonging to the secondary or minor network of each country) serves small numbers of passengers and goods travelling on private, short-haul flights. (i) Global air traffic, in the world [2], measured in Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPK) from 1970 to 2015, doubles every 15 years. Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPKs) grew 6.3% in 2016, as compared to 2015, and for the 20 years Airbus forecasts a 4.4% annual growth in global air traffic. The number of air journeys expected in 2050 in Europe has significantly increased (more than 25.000 Instruments Flight Rules Movements)
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