A simulation-based study of arrival-departure flow management

• Main Author: Neo, Eugene Rui Ming
• Other Authors: Jitamitra Desai
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/67377
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Over the past decades, there has been a significant growth in aviation traffic, especially across Asia. This is mainly caused by the introduction of many budget airlines, which greatly reduces the flight tickets, making travelling less expensive. This trend has raised the need for airports to be bigger and their facilities to be more efficient. However, some countries have failed to manage this issue, resulting in delays and slot limitations. Most major capital city airport in Southeast Asia has issues with congestion. Singapore’s Changi International Airport, is an example. Singapore has invested billions in building more infrastructures like passenger terminals, runways and a second control tower to further increase the handling capacity of Changi Airport. Other than the “hardware” components, researches and studies are also conducted to ensure the safety standards of managing increasing air traffic. They also serve to enhance the efficient management of air traffic. This report aims to study in detail the use of AirTOp and its simulation techniques on arrival-departure flow management. AirTOp is a fast time simulation program that is able to model the operation of an airport. Simulation models will be built in the context of Changi Airport, showcasing arrival and departing air traffic. The landing durations from individual entry gates are determined to discover potential benefits of landing on a particular runway compared to the other. In addition, the duration between each successive landing is experimented to find out the theoretical maximum capacity of the runway and to determine potential advantages of scheduling arrival flights. Finally, a comparison is made between current flight schedule statistics and the determined theoretical maximum capacity.