Air Route Network Research Articles

Research on air route network nodes optimization with avoiding the three areas

For the sake of easing the large-area flight delays and relieving the increasing pressure of the safe operation due to growing air traffic, the optimization model of air route network (ARN for short) nodes was established with avoiding “three areas” (prohibited area PA for short, restricted area RA for short, danger area DA for short) under the condition of flight safety and operating cost. The objective function was the shortest path of ARN in this model, and the cellular automata (CA) model with fixed boundary and the neighbors of Moore was used to find solution for the model. As a case study, flight paths A596, B458 and H33 in the busy airspace of ZBPE (Beijing Flight Information Area) were selected. Under the condition of the current flight flow, radar control operation interval of 20km, standard cruise speed of 800km/h and no controller’s intervention, the optimization design of ARN nodes was accomplished successfully with avoiding the three areas. The number of the nodes was reduced by 10.526%, the probability of the flight conflict risk of the two important cross network nodes “Tian Zhen” and “Nan Cheng Zi” was reduced by 0.99% and 66.33% respectively, and their safety level is acceptable, total cost of flight path was reduced by 0.009%, and the nonlinear coefficient of ARN was reduced by 0.332%. The cost of the above mentioned optimization results was that the total distance of route segments was increased by 0.329%.The previous ARN planning methods pay more attention to the flight paths after planning, and their purposes are to get more convenient, efficient, or safer flight paths. China has a giant airspace with many three areas, and the three areas must be avoided in the process of ARN planning inevitably, which is not implemented in the previous work. CA model proposed in this paper improved the safety of the ARN. It also completed the ARN node optimization and avoided the three areas. It provided not only an effective solution method for the ongoing ARN planning and adjustment under China airspace management system, but also a new train of thought about ARN node optimization for other countries with similar airspace characteristics.

A strategic flight conflict avoidance approach based on a memetic algorithm

Conflict avoidance (CA) plays a crucial role in guaranteeing the airspace safety. The current approaches, mostly focusing on a short-term situation which eliminates conflicts via local adjustment, cannot provide a global solution. Recently, long-term conflict avoidance approaches, which are proposed to provide solutions via strategically planning traffic flow from a global view, have attracted more attentions. With consideration of the situation in China, there are thousands of flights per day and the air route network is large and complex, which makes the long-term problem to be a large-scale combinatorial optimization problem with complex constraints. To minimize the risk of premature convergence being faced by current approaches and obtain higher quality solutions, in this work, we present an effective strategic framework based on a memetic algorithm (MA), which can markedly improve search capability via a combination of population-based global search and local improvements made by individuals. In addition, a specially designed local search operator and an adaptive local search frequency strategy are proposed to improve the solution quality. Furthermore, a fast genetic algorithm (GA) is presented as the global optimization method. Empirical studies using real traffic data of the Chinese air route network and daily flight plans show that our approach outperformed the existing approaches including the GA based approach and the cooperative coevolution based approach as well as some well-known memetic algorithm based approaches.

IMPACT OF INFORMATION ON THE DELIVERY OF CARGO WITH AIR TRANSPORT

Peculiarities of the impact of informatization on the process of cargo delivery involving air transport under conditions of competitive environment dynamic development have been considered. Information products providing uploading capacity on an extensive air route network were analysed. The role of international mediation bodies for financial settlements between participants of air transportation process was determined. Basic aspects of the pricing control depending on the condition of flight load of a network carrier were identified. The experience of implementing innovative SAP-technologies by airline "Aeroflot" as the closest to national realities, as well as the world leader - airline "Lufthansa" was analysed.

Comparing air transport network operations in sparse networks in Africa

The aviation industry is changing dynamically in order to increase market share and remain competitive. This study investigates the effectiveness of hub-and-spoke network design versus traditional point-to-point services for the African air route network. This network is currently characterised by sparse demand, with long sector distances, low frequencies and high fares. Criteria such as passenger demand and sector distance differentiate the routes that will be compared. The findings show that hubbing is advantageous for shorter routes with low passenger demand. The disadvantage of the extra travel time incurred by passengers in a sparse hub network, on routes with low passenger demand, is outweighed by increased accessibility and lower fares. Some of the high passenger demand routes can be operated profitably either as direct routes or as routes in a hub network. This highlights the need to allow for flexibility in permitting direct routes when planning a hub network.

Analysis of the Chinese air route network as a complex network

The air route network, which supports all the flight activities of the civil aviation, is the most fundamental infrastructure of air traffic management system. In this paper, we study the Chinese air route network (CARN) within the framework of complex networks. We find that CARN is a geographical network possessing exponential degree distribution, low clustering coefficient, large shortest path length and exponential spatial distance distribution that is obviously different from that of the Chinese airport network (CAN). Besides, via investigating the flight data from 2002 to 2010, we demonstrate that the topology structure of CARN is homogeneous, howbeit the distribution of flight flow on CARN is rather heterogeneous. In addition, the traffic on CARN keeps growing in an exponential form and the increasing speed of west China is remarkably larger than that of east China. Our work will be helpful to better understand Chinese air traffic systems.

An optimal network for passenger traffic

The optimal solution of an inter-city passenger transport network has been studied using Zipf’s law for the city populations and the Gravity law describing the fluxes of inter-city passenger traffic. Assuming a fixed value for the cost of transport per person per kilometer we observe that while the total traffic cost decreases, the total wiring cost increases with the density of links. As a result the total cost to maintain the traffic distribution is optimal at a certain link density which vanishes on increasing the network size. At a finite link density the network is scale-free. Using this model the air-route network of India has been generated and an one-to-one comparison of the nodal degree values with the real network has been made.

Dynamic Air-Route Adjustments — Model, Algorithm, and Sensitivity Analysis

Dynamic airspace management (DAM) is an important approach to extend limited air space resources by using them more efficiently and flexibly. This paper analyzes the use of the dynamic air-route adjustment (DARA) method as a core procedure in DAM systems. DARA method makes dynamic decisions on when and how to adjust the current air-route network with the minimum cost. This model differs from the air traffic flow management (ATFM) problem because it considers dynamic opening and closing of air-route segments instead of only arranging flights on a given air traffic network and it takes into account several new constraints, such as the shortest opening time constraint. The DARA problem is solved using a two-step heuristic algorithm. The sensitivities of important coefficients in the model are analyzed to determine proper values for these coefficients. The computational results based on practical data from the Beijing ATC region show that the two-step heuristic algorithm gives as good results as the CPLEX in less or equal time in most cases.

A new hierarchical architecture for Air Traffic Management: Optimisation of airway capacity in a Free Flight scenario

We describe a new two-level hierarchical architecture for air traffic management problems with corresponding mathematical models. The first level represents the air route network, and its solutions provide the air traffic flows on each arc of the network. This level interacts with the second one, which represents the single airway and its own air traffic flows. This latter model allows us to assign the optimal air traffic route to each aircraft and to optimise the airway's capacity. Furthermore, for the airway optimisation model we have also carried out a computational analysis, providing both exact and heuristic solutions, for problem instances based on real data. These are obtained with the Cplex solver exploiting the mixed integer mathematical formulation and with a proposed heuristic algorithm for problems of larger size, respectively. The heuristic solutions obtained are within a maximum gap of 13% from the LP relaxation.

Liberalisation of European aviation: analysis and modelling of the airline behaviour

This paper deals with the analysis and modelling of behaviour of the Western European airlines during the first phase of the gradual liberalisation of the EU (European Union) aviation market. The framework for monitoring this behaviour and appropriate methodology for registering significant changes in the airline industry, specific airlines, and the aviation market itself has been developed. Three classes of empirical models have been estimated: airline growth and financial performances, airline mergings and alliances by holding of equity stakes in partners, and airline relationships (cooperation and/or competition) on the EU air route network consisting of five sub-models. The EU airline sub-models are: market share, market concentration, air travel demand, quality of services, and pricing policy. The least-square regression technique has been applied over the cross-sectional data for making the empirical estimates.

A practical capacity model of an air route network

This paper presents a model for determining the practical capacity of an air route network. The model is based upon the theory of queueing networks. In the model presented here the Air Traffic Control sectors being parts of an airspace, are considered to be network nodes, while the segments of the air routes along which aircraft can fly from one sector to another are called network branches. The main inputs for the model are divided into two groups: inputs referring to demand for service within the air route network and those referring to service characteristics of the network. The inputs on demand are: intensity of incoming aircraft flow which demand service within each of the Air Traffic Control sectors of the network and distributions of traffic among these sectors in a given time unit; these distributions are represented by probabilities of aircraft passing from one sector to another. The inputs of service characteristics are: ultimate capacity of the micronetwork of air routes in each sector as a par...

A Mathematical Model for Predicting the Duration of Potential Conflict Situations at Intersecting Air Routes

A mathematical model is developed for predicting the expected duration of potential conflict situations at the intersection of air routes in the en route environment. Given the intersection angle of two routes and the average flows and speeds of aircraft, the model provides an estimate of the average duration of a potential conflict and the total time the aircraft would spend in potential conflict if no preventive action were taken by controllers or pilots. The model can be used in planning air route network geometry, as well as in providing guidelines to the establishment of suitable levels of traffic flow along various routes.

A Mathematical Model for Predicting the Number of Potential Conflict Situations at Intersecting Air Routes

A mathematical model is developed for predicting the expected number of potential conflict situations at the intersection of air routes. Given the intersection angle of two routes and the average flows and speeds of aircraft, the model predicts the average number of potential conflict situations per unit of time. A concept of intersection capacity based on conflict situations is introduced, and a mathematical model of intersection capacity is developed. The models can be used in planning air route network geometry, as well as in providing guidelines to the establishment of suitable levels of traffic flow along various routes.