SCSC2003 Abstract S1809
Building the Timetable from Bottom-Up Demand A Micro-Econometric Approach
Building the Timetable from Bottom-Up Demand A Micro-Econometric Approach
Submitting Author: Ms. Jennifer Gentry
Abstract:
Building the Timetable from Bottom-Up Demand:
A Micro-Econometric Approach
Dipasis Bhadra, Jennifer Gentry, Brendan Hogan,
Felipe Moreno-Hines and Michael Wells
The MITRE Corporation's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development
7515 Colshire Drive, McLean, Virginia 22102
The contents of this document reflect the views of the author and The MITRE Corporation and do not necessarily reflect the views of the FAA or the DOT. Neither the Federal Aviation Administration nor the Department of Transportation makes any warranty or guarantee, expressed or implied, concerning the content or accuracy of these views.
2003 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Abstract
The aviation community has a rich collection of tools that simulate the operational flows of the National Airspace System (NAS). In nearly all cases, modeled operational flows of aircraft in the NAS begin with a schedule generated outside of the model. In the past, this schedule has been derived by translating Terminal Area Forecasts (TAF) into flights. The downside to this, however, is that NAS operations are made up of specific airport-to-airport flows, which may be different from a simplistic extrapolation of terminal area growth attributable to those airports. The challenge is to move from a generic traffic count at a specific terminal to a schedule of flights that includes a "when" and a "where" dimension.
Because modeled NAS operational performance is highly dependent on the characteristics of the forecast scheduled operations, it is critical that a schedule of traffic is created correctly. The top-down approach described above achieves its goal of replicating the intended volume of flights at each airport, but it does not necessarily achieve the desired operational-level integrity. In other words, the existing method is not capable of forecasting route-specific growth in operational flows.
At The MITRE Corporation's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD), we are building a framework which attempts to fill in the gaps mentioned above using a bottom-up, demand-driven micro-econometric approach. Our ultimate goal is to produce a schedule of flights that is linked with origin and destination (O&D) operations via passenger route choice. It should thus be in sync with the Official Airline Guide (OAG), but not driven by it. Our method is comprised of eight basic steps, beginning with forecasts of traveler demand between O&D city pairs, and culminating with the creation of a forecast schedule that incorporates all major aspects of passenger demand.
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