Benefits analysis of a routing aid for New York area departures

The New York area is well-known to have some of the most congested airspace and airports in the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS). The challenge to air traffic management results from high demand, proximity of busy airports, and occasional disruptive weather events. A prototype capability called Integrated Departure Route Planning (IDRP) is being tested this year (2010), in its “Phase 1” version. It will be an adjunct capability to the Route Availability Planning Tool (RAPT), developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Lincoln Laboratory (MIT/LL), which has been used successfully in a prototype mode for several years. The IDRP display windows will be output onto the RAPT terminal device, which is now installed at the New York approach control, several en route centers, multiple towers, and several air carrier operations desks. IDRP provides a forecast horizon of fix- and route-specific loading for New York departures, with color-coding to alert traffic managers about fix congestion and possible weather impacts. Whereas the RAPT display shows route blockage/availability and is useful only in situations of convective weather, IDRP should have benefits during both good weather and convective activity. A benefits estimation process was undertaken to approximate the total annual dollar benefit that might be expected from the full deployment of IDRP (which is some years away) to deal with non-weather-related congestion. Analysis of archived data found cases where fix congestion, and the associated taxi-out delays could have been ameliorated by reassigning affected flights to uncongested alternate fixes, subject to airline acceptance.