Airport Arrival Capacity Benefits Due to Improved Scheduling Accuracy

*† A new tool for studying scheduling logic and accuracy for terminal area arrival traffic is described. This tool, the Stochastic Terminal Area Scheduling Simulation (STASS), evaluated the benefits of improved scheduling accuracy for an arrival traffic rush period at the Dallas/Fort-Worth airport with current demand and several levels of increased demand. Four configurations of meter fix arrival accuracy and runway arrival accuracy were simulated: 1) a completely manual system, 2) a system utilizing Decision Support Tools (DST), 3) a highly automated system such as proposed in the Advanced Airspace Concept (AAC) and 4) an ideal system with perfect conformance of flights to scheduled positions. For delays equivalent to those produced by the manual system under today’s demand, the DST, AAC and ideal configurations could accommodate increased demands of 19%, 42% and 69% respectively. The effect of accuracy and demand on the rate of potential runway violations is also presented. STASS was also used to study the benefits of scheduling flights so that some of their delay is adsorbed within Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) airspace. The simulations show that absorbing some of the delay in the TRACON is beneficial as it increases runway utilization, which reduces overall delay and the average fuel burned.