Airport Regulation Research Articles

DESIGNING OF NOISE POLLUTION MEASURES FOR A MILITARY AIRFIELD

This article discusses the possibilities of reducing noise pollution in the vicinity of a selected airport, with an emphasis on practical measures. The proposed procedures, which are routinely employed at commercial airports, would be ineffective or financially unsustainable under the circumstances of the military airports. The objective at military airports is not to maximise capacity, as at civil airports, where the desire to increase capacity is primarily related to profit. The primary objective for military airports is to perform defined tasks, which may include pilot training, search and rescue exercises and combat training. The main measures proposed to reduce noise pollution in the vicinity of the villages are changes in departure and arrival routes, the splitting of night operations into two parts and the introduction of a new article in the AIP and Airport Regulations prohibiting air operations over and in close proximity to the villages nearby. Finally, it is stressed that a significant reduction in noise will only be possible with the support of changes in legislation or above-standard financial investment by the airport operator.

A probabilistic model based on the peak-over-threshold approach for risk assessment of airport controllers' performance

Airport tower control plays an instrumental role in ensuring airport safety. However, obtaining objective, quantitative safety evaluations is challenging due to the unavailability of pertinent human operation data. This study introduces a probabilistic model that combines aircraft dynamics and the peak-over-threshold (POT) approach to assess the safety performance of airport controllers. We applied the POT approach to model reaction times extracted from a radiotelephony dataset via a voice event detection algorithm. The model couples the risks of tower control and aircraft operation to analyze the influence of human factors. Using data from radiotelephony communications and the Base of Aircraft Data (BADA) database, we compared risk levels across scenarios. Our findings revealed heightened airport control risks under low demand (0.374) compared to typical conditions (0.197). Furthermore, the risks associated with coupling under low demand exceeded those under typical demand, with the final approach stage presenting the highest risk (4.929×10−7). Our model underscores the significance of human factors and the implications of mental disconnects between pilots and controllers for safety risks. Collectively, these consistent findings affirm the reliability of our probabilistic model as an evaluative tool for evaluating the safety performance of airport tower controllers. The results also illuminate the path toward quantitative real-time safety evaluations for airport controllers within the industry. We recommend that airport regulators focus on the performance of airport controllers, particularly during the final approach stage.

Exploring New Computational Strategies for Managing Maintenance Activities of Airport Pavement Systems

AbstractIn this paper, the optimization of the maintenance management problem regarding airport pavements is addressed by developing a series of fast computational procedures whose rationales pursue both practical and economical objectives. Particularly, the study involves the design of five new heuristic algorithms replicating different management strategies that can be undertaken by the airport managers in a certain time horizon for reducing the pavement maintenance costs while considering the impact on the service level of the airport. Each algorithm works on the basis of a preliminary computational framework that has a twofold scope: (i) selecting the pavement portions to be maintained during the provided time horizon. (ii) using a K-means method based on three well-known performance indicators, which, namely, are Residual Life (RL), International Roughness Index (IRI) and Pavement Condition Index (PCI), to group the selected portions into homogenous clusters named work-zones. To evaluate the effectiveness and the efficiency of the proposed optimization algorithms in coping with the maintenance programming problem under investigation, an extended design of experiments based on international airport regulations has been arranged. The obtained numerical results revealed that no single strategy can be selected as the most performing in terms of cost and quality conditions of the pavements. To make robust the numerical results, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to evaluate the influence of the total cost of maintenance on runway length and number of sections. However, the results obtained in this study provide a series of managerial implications, further expanding the research contribution.

How has airport service quality changed in the context of COVID-19: A data-driven crowdsourcing approach based on sentiment analysis

Airport service quality (ASQ) is a competitive advantage for airport management in today's airport market. Since the COVID-19 health crisis has unprecedentedly influenced airport regulations and operations, effective measurement of ASQ has become crucial for airport administrations. Surveying travelers' attitudes is useful for ASQ assessment but collecting responses could be time-consuming and costly. Therefore, this paper adopts a data-driven crowdsourcing approach to study ASQ during the COVID-19 pandemic by investigating Google Maps reviews from the 98 busiest U.S. airports. To do so, this study develops a topical ontology of keywords regarding ASQ attributes and uses a sentiment tool to derive passengers' attitudes. Through sentiment analysis, Google Maps reviews show more positive sentiment toward environment and personnel but remain constant about facilities during COVID-19. The lexical salience-valence analysis (LSVA) is then applied to explain such changes by tracking the sentiment of frequent words in reviews. Through correlation and regression analysis, this study demonstrates that rating is significantly related to check-in, environment, and personnel in pre-and post-COVID periods. Additionally, the effect of access, wayfinding, facilities, and environment on rating significantly differs between the two periods. The findings illustrate the effectiveness of leveraging online reviews and offer practical implications for what matters to air travelers, especially in the COVID-19 context.

Flight delay prediction from spatial and temporal perspective

In this paper, we propose a novel prediction framework (ST-Random Forest) for flight delay prediction from temporal and spatial perspective. We first apply complex network theory to extract the spatial feature of the aviation network at edge-, node-, and network-level. Furthermore, considering the temporal correlation of weather condition and airport crowdedness on flight delays, we create a prediction framework based on LSTM units to extract the temporal property of crowdedness and weather condition. Finally, we use the factors (e.g., spatial, temporal and extrinsic) that affect flight delays as inputs and apply Random Forest as classifier to predict flight delays. We apply and test our approach in a case study at China domestic flights between Jun and Aug 2016; after evaluation, we find that the accuracy of our proposed model reaches 92.39%. For the on-time samples, approximately 86% are correct identified; for the delayed samples, the classification accuracy reaches 95%. The ST-Random Forest model contributes to aviation authorities and airport regulators by creating real-time monitoring and high accuracy prediction system to alleviate flight delays and providing insightful suggestions to develop effective air traffic control strategies.

Air pollution dispersion modeling of runway and apron at Sam Ratulangi international airport

Air pollution generated from airport activities has become public concern and the subject of more rigorous government regulations. The Airport Operators are stipulated to control the pollution and for the accountability of air quality that might affect public health. The main objective of this study is to establish a model for the distribution of air pollutants and to predict their concentrations generated by the runway and apron operations at Sam Ratulangi International Airport (Manado) until 2024, in accordance with the airport expansion program. The data was collected in the airport surrounding area in 2018, while the climate data over a span of 10 years, from 2009 to 2018, was obtained from Sam Ratulangi Meteorological Station. The modeling on dispersion of air pollutant gases was developed by the Gaussian Plume Equation. The simulation was performed using AERMOD software, and the results visualized by GIS software. AERMOD software was recommended by the US-EPA to predict the impact of air pollutants. The results predicted that the maximum concentrations of NOx; HC; and CO generated by runway activities modeling in 2024 were 250 μg.m-3; 6.4 μg.m-3; and 87 μg.m-3 respectively. The results also predicted that the maximum concentrations of NOx; CO; and PM10 due to apron operational activities in 2024 were 260 μg.m-3; 892 μg.m-3; and 2.5 μg.m-3 respectively. The model predicted that in 2024 the air pollution at Sam Ratulangi International Airport will remain under the limit as defined in Indonesian Government Regulation No. 22 of 2021. To mitigate the future increase in air emissions due to the increase in airport capacity, the recommendation were proposed in the several areas, which were including operation management, technology, policies and airport regulations, as well as the provision of green area.

Graph to sequence learning with attention mechanism for network-wide multi-step-ahead flight delay prediction

The primary objective of this study is to predict network-wide multi-step-ahead flight delay. A novel graph-to-sequence learning architecture with attention mechanism (AG2S-Net) is developed to predict the multi-step-ahead hourly departure and arrival delay of the entire network. The proposed AG2S-Net consists of a graph convolution neural network, a bi-LSTM neural network, and a sequence-to-sequence framework with embedded attention mechanism. Five-year flight data of 75 airports and 242 links are collected from the National Airspace System to illustrate the procedure. First, K-means clustering algorithm is applied to classify the hourly flight delay states of the entire network into four typical delay patterns, which are further used as explanatory variables in prediction model. Then, the network-wide multi-step-ahead flight delay prediction model is built with the proposed AG2S-Net. The result indicates that the model achieves better performance on large-scale airports than small-scale airports. The delay pattern variables and weather variables can greatly improve the prediction performance. In addition, compared with several benchmark methods, the AG2S-Net performs the best for all three airport types in terms of the lowest RMSE and MAE values. Finally, the graph network analysis further reveals that the proposed AG2S-Net can capture the hidden correlations between airports without links and collect information from more airports in the same community to enhance the prediction performance. The results of this study could provide insightful suggestions for aviation authorities and airport regulators to develop effective air traffic control strategies for alleviating flight delays and improving operation efficiency of the entire network.

Incentives and optimal time of investment in New Zealand’s building-blocks regulation of its FTTH open-access network

Understanding the incentive structure and the effects on the timing of investment of any regulatory regime is of outmost importance to all stakeholders. A fundamental question in the literature on broadband investment and regulation, articulated in Cambini and Jiang (2009), asks: “what impacts regulation imposes on firms’ investment behavior in broadband communications, impetus or hindrance, and how regulatory regimes should be designed to foster the incentive to invest?”. New Zealand’s Part 6 of the amended New Zealand Telecommunications Act (2018 New Regulatory Framework) describes a new regulatory framework largely based on the Commerce Act of 1986 that applies to regulation of electricity lines, gas pipelines and airports. This is known as the Building Blocks Model (BBM) approach. Biggar (2004) defines the BBM approach to regulation as “a tool for spreading (or amortising) the expenditure of the regulated firm over time so as to ensure a path of revenue or prices which has the property that the present value of the firm’s allowed revenue is equal to the present value of the firm’s expenditure”. In New Zealand the Framework, and the BBM approach in particular, are aimed to regulate Fibre Fixed-Line Access Services or FFLAS. Regulation is to be achieved by using “price-quality paths” and “information disclosure determinations”, regulatory tools in use in the utility sector. The redetermination of the price-quality path is based on estimation of the price or revenue path that would provide the regulated entity with a normal return taking into account the forthcoming regulatory period and the expected future price-quality path in future periods. This paper will build upon and extend main results in Borrmann and Brunekreeft (2011), to investigate the optimal time of investment under some directive that follows the new regulatory norms. It also focuses on identifying the source of incentives in the determination of building blocks, following (Biggar, 2004). The leading role of New Zealand in the successful deployment of a national Fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network and the consequential overhaul of the telecommunications market suggest the analysis of the new regulatory approach in terms of time of investment and incentives is not only timely but also quite relevant.

Investigation and Development of 3D Printed Conventional Shape Compact UWB-DRAs for Societal Applications

The potential of polylactic acid (PLA) material as an ultra-wide band (UWB)-dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) created by 3D-printing technique are described in this scientific paper. PLA is an exceptional sort of biodegradable thermoplastic composite material having the dissipation factor (tanδ) of 0.05 and dielectric constant (e $${}_{\mathbf{r}}$$ ) of 3.47. Easily available as well as low-cost PLA based Dielectric Resonator Antennas (DRAs) of conventional geometries i.e., Rectangular DRA (RDRA), Cylindrical DRA (CDRA) and Triangular DRA (TDRA) have been explored and developed for broadband societal applications. These three definite constructions of the 3D assembly are utilized to demonstrate the attributes of the PLA as a DRA. Proposed structures of DRAs attain the wide bandwidth of 81.98%, 83.42% and 71.23% for RDRA, CDRA and TDRA respectively for |S11|< −10 dB. The average value of accomplished peak gain is ~ 4 dB for rated maximum frequency band. Therefore, proposed DRAs have an assortment of social utilization in C-, X- and Ku band, for example, climate checking, airport regulation and electromagnetic sensor.

Measurement model of passengers’ expectations of airport service quality

The Thai aviation industry is projected to maintain steady growth due to an increase in flights and passengers, which will be supported by expanded air transport infrastructure. Along with handling the logistical demands imposed by increased traffic, airports must improve their quality of services, efficiency, and attentiveness to passengers’ needs so as to maintain high customer ratings. The objective of this study was to create a model for measuring airport quality by using confirmatory factor analysis to identify passengers’ expectations. The sample consisted of 1037 randomly selected passengers flying on domestic Thai airlines. The resulting model consists of seven dimensions of service quality: security, check-in, wayfinding, airport environment, access, arrival services, and airport facilities. This set of dimensions is complementary to previous research and can help airport regulators to better understand the actual needs of airport users and plan airport development accordingly. To strengthen Thailand’s economy within a framework of sustainable growth, it is important to provide passengers with more attractive services so that they will become repeat customers.

Evaluation and Projection of Airport Landing Movement Areas based on Statistical Analyses, ICAO 2013 Manuals and KM 44, 2002 Regulation

This article demonstrated how to calculate an airport landing movement in systematic five main stages encompassing; (i) data collection (including passengers data, aircraft movements, population, GDP, per capita income, cargos movement, temperatures, ground elevation, slope surface, wind speed, and aircraft characteristics), (ii) forecasting the future traffic demands, (iii) calculating aerodrome reference field length (ARFL), (iv) define aerodrome reference code (ARF), and (v) calculate runway dimensions, taxiways, and apron areas. This article has selected Hang Nadim International Airport (HIA) as a case study. It was identified that the aircraft movements in this airport have increased by an average of 7.30% every year in the periods of 2007 to 2016. This Airport has an existing apron with a capacity of 13 aircraft, while the apron currently has to accommodate 19 aircraft. Therefore, to anticipate future demand. This research evaluated and forecasted the requirements standard for the airport landing movement areas in 2026. Based on the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) 2013 manuals and KM 44, 2002 regulation concerning the National Airport Regulation. This article recommended that the existing runway and taxiways would be adequate to facilitate future aircraft movements up to 2026. However, the apron requires to be expanded to 1,600 m x 150 m (which a capacity of 31 aircraft) for accommodating the apron requirements standard in 2026.

Introduction: Regulation of airports

Introduction: Regulation of airports

Airport competition from airports’ perspective: Evidence from a survey of European airports

In this study, we describe the results of a questionnaire distributed among European airports in the autumn of 2019. The questionnaire was designed to elicit airports’ views on the practicalities of competition between airports. We received 49 responses from airports in 24 countries; the respondents represent airports of different sizes. The survey results evidence behaviours consistent with significant competition between airports. Airports are taking active steps through their resourcing and staffing, incentives and marketing to attract airline services, and clearly see themselves taking the initiative in doing so. No airport, no matter how large, appears to be able to escape competition. The main policy message of our study, consistent with other recent reviews of airport competition, is that European regulators should re-evaluate their approach to the economic regulation of airports, especially as far as regional airports are concerned.

Yardstick Regulation in a Competitive Context? The Case of the Italian Airports

Over the past years, airport regulation has been generating a lot of interest in Europe, and despite the passing of Airport Charges Directive in 2009, there is ongoing debate on the need for introducing tighter airport regulations. The aim of the paper is twofold. First, acknowledging that regulation is usually applied in markets where competition is weak or absent, we evaluate the ex-ante need for price regulation in the air transport industry. By focusing on the Italian airport industry, our analysis provides evidence of a high level of competitive pressure faced by airports (both inside and outside the industry), suggesting that tighter price regulation may not be the optimal solution. Second, assuming that stricter regulation of the airport industry is necessary, we empirically investigate the applicability of yardstick regulation to the Italian airport system, outlining critical challenges and issues that may arise when applying benchmarking techniques in setting the optimum level of efficiency at regulated airports. According to current literature, applicability of empirical benchmarking techniques requires some basic research requirements to be met, such as high-quality data, a homogeneous production function, and a sufficient number of comparable observations. We find that both heterogeneity and the relatively small number of comparable airports, along with the complexity of gathering proper data, may compromise the applicability of a regulation scheme based on yardstick principles at the national level.

Studying the empirical implications of the liberalization of airport markets

This paper offers an overview of what we know about the impacts of the economic regulation of commercial airports. It offers no new empirical findings, but rather considers the challenges of conducting ex post analysis of regulatory reform. It provides an overview of what completed studies have found and assesses whether regulations have achieved their objectives. Little is said about the desirability of these objectives. The focus is on the infrastructure needed to provide commercial passenger air services. Part of the discussion concerns the extent to which the results found in more recent studies offer replication of earlier findings. One function of applied analysis is to offer confirmation or refutation of the findings of prior studies, but this is often given short shrift compared to “novelty.” The paper focuses, in particular, on matters concerning ownership, slot allocation, and supplementary incomes.

Agent-based vulnerability assessment at airport security checkpoints: A case study on security operator behavior

Despite enormous investments in airport security, terrorists have been able to find and exploit vulnerabilities at security checkpoints. Existing vulnerability assessment methodologies struggle with accounting for human behavior, and agent-based modelling forms a promising technique to overcome this limitation.This paper investigated how the decision-making and performance of human operators can be taken into account while assessing vulnerability at an airport security checkpoint. To this end, an agent-based model was designed, in which the performance of security operators was modelled using a functional state model, while decision making was modelled using decision field theory. Passengers and an attacker that brings a weapon to the security checkpoint were also explicitly modelled as agents. Simulation results indicate that the highest skilled operators outperformed their lowest skilled counterparts on analyzing X-ray images, but performed worse on both searching luggage and performing patdowns. Furthermore, results showed that a high focus on speed of security operators leads to a decrease in luggage searches and therefore increased vulnerability.More work is needed to calibrate and validate the simulation results, but initial results are promising. The agent-based model can be used by airport regulators and managers to understand the workings of their security checkpoint better and ultimately to reduce vulnerabilities.

Environmental Planning for Disaster Risk Reduction at Kaduna International Airport, Kaduna Nigeria

The compatibility of an airport with its environs can be achieved by proper environmental control and planning of the airport, control of pollution-generating sources, and land use planning of the area surrounding the airport are paramount if disasters are to be averted or reduced to the acceptable standard. This study was carried out to assess the compliance to standards of the activities relating to environmental control and planning at Kaduna International Airport as contained in International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and other Airport regulations Guidelines. The objectives including assessing the environmental impact associated with aviation activities, assessing environmental consequence and control measures and assessing land use planning at the Airport. The Airport Environmental Management Handbook, Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) Hand book, ICAO Documents, Maps and other relevant information were consulted. Questionnaires were distributed and percentage distribution was used in analyzing the objectives. Results from this study has shown an acceptable level of compliance in Environmental Planning by the relevant authority of Kaduna International Airport. The results from this study will be useful to FAAN, ICAO and other relevant Agencies in enhancing Environmental Control and Planning at Airports for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Airport Regulation

Airport Regulation

Economic regulation of privatised airports: Some lessons from UK experience

This paper describes the evolution over time of policy, structure, competition and regulation of UK airports. Restructuring an airport sector at the time of privatisation will better enable airports to compete. If this is not done, the structure can be revised later, although by then the opposition will be greater. The appropriate form and focus of airport regulation will and should evolve over time, as experience accumulates and as economic and technical opportunities themselves evolve. As competition develops, the extent of airport regulation can with advantage be reduced over time, with a correspondingly increased role for airlines and their customers.

ENERGY MANAGEMENT IN SYSTEM CONTROL OF AIRPORT

In the article the management system model effective volume of consumption of electricity airport. In developing models of automated control systems efficient consumption of electricity airports must comply with three key criteria: safety, regularity and efficiency. When building control systems important characteristic is its structure, which provides technical and economic management. Under these conditions, system requirements formulated in the form of indicators. These indicators are given as fixed, or they have to get in the process of finding the appropriate management mode (best mode). Such systems solve existing management systems including and automated dispatching. These control systems are based on the technological model of the object, technical monitoring, evaluation of technical supervision, implementation of the technical evaluation. In order to effectively manage the consumption of electricity proposed organization airports solitary life energy. Under SEM mean a structural unit of the airport, which includes the necessary organizational structure, planning activities, responsibilities and procedures, processes and resources for the development, implementation and evaluation of progress and improvement of policies, goals and objectives of improving energy efficiency and measures to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Identified information management and communication between energy service units and airport. Efficiency management system based on advanced algorithms and techniques on the valuation of specific power consumption and forecasting electricity consumption of the airport. The effectiveness of these measures is increased by the phased implementation of a set of practical recommendations. Practical application of models of automated control system for efficient consumption of electricity airports will establish information flows and management responsible departments Airport to provide proposals and determine corrective actions to effectively power consumption. Permanent monitoring of electricity consumption objects of airport regulation and prediction of power is the key to improving energy security.