EVALUATING TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE AIR TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM THROUGH AGENT-BASED MODELING AND SIMULATION

To increase the capacity, safety, efficiency, quality, and affordability of air transportation systems require potentially revolutionary transformations. These transformations may involve system-wide changes and innovations as well as changes to individual components within the system. All of these changes require a robust modeling and simulation tool that can evaluate overall collective emergent system performance arising from individual components’ behavior as proposed in innovative ATM concepts. This paper proposes agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS), including computational human performance models, as a conceptual framework and a simulation platform for a priori computational analysis method of predicting the impact of innovative ATM concepts. A specific test case of analyzing aircraft arrivals into LAX using a variety of spacing techniques was examined throughout as a demonstration, and as an opportunity to compare simulation predictions about current system behavior to available measures. The results indicate that ABMS has the capability to reveal unexpected emergent behaviors and can be used to investigate the causes of and potential solutions to them.

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