Analysis of alternative collaborative route selection strategies based on cost and throughput

Air Traffic Flow Management (TFM) is a collaborative process between the airspace provider (ATCSCC) and the airspace users (AOCs). The result of the collaboration should be an outcome that maximizes the utility of the system without excessively penalizing any of the agents. This paper describes the results of a tradeoff analysis between flight costs and sector throughput for combinations of ATCSCC and AOC strategies for flight-plan route selections in the presence of weather that affects enroute airspace capacity. The analysis is conducted using a discrete event simulation model of an airspace network with several airports, sectors and alternative airways. The results of the analysis indicate that when both Miles-in-Trails (MIT) restrictions for the airspace, as well as, TFM rerouting in collaboration with the AOC takes place, the performance of the overall system achieves a reduction of 67% in delay costs, 61% in delay time, 22% in delay rate and 69% in total passengers delay time (compared to the baseline). The implications of the results are discussed in this paper.