Variable-Length Link Transmission Model For Trac Flow Management

A Variable-Length Link Transmission Model for Tra c Flow Management (TFM) is developed and implemented. The model is derived from the spatial reduction of a Multicommodity Large Capacity Cell Transmission Model for en route tra c. Like the Cell Transmission Model, our Link Transmission Model is based on an aggregation of historical air tra c data, and minimizes total aircraft ight time by selecting aircraft holding and routing decisions. Compared to the Cell Transmission formulation, the Link Transmission formulation decreases the number of variables by a factor of eight without impacting the accuracy of the model. Also, solving and processing time is reduced by up to 90%.