Air
traffic growth: Cause for concern or an economic necessity?
Predicting the
future: An analytic approach rather than a crystal ball
Medium and long
term sustainable growth in air transport
During the mid to late 1990s, air transport was experiencing regular,
unabated growth and predictions at the start of the 21st century
generally concurred that air traffic in Europe was likely to double by 2015.
The reasons for such growth are numerous, but all have their origins in the
liberalisation of European air transport (stimulation of demand due to ticket
price reductions, the increased scope of “hub and spoke” operations and, more
recently, the stimulation of “new” demand as a result of the low-cost carriers)
At the highest level, an
efficient air transport system is a driver for economic growth and it also
facilitates an increased quality of life as a result of more wide-ranging
leisure possibilities. Against this background of growth, a number of political
initiatives (MATSE/6, European Commission White Paper on Transport Policy [1])
have highlighted some of the potential negative impacts, namely increased
levels of congestion, accentuation of the modal imbalance and negative
environmental effects.
In order to provide more insight
into these conflicting issues, the EEC has developed a number of simulation
tools capable of analysing a wide range of scenarios taking into account the
intricacies of the European ATM network. These tools have been developed with
the following aims :
·
To
provide an indication of the level of additional demand in the future which
will have difficulty in gaining access to the network due to the presence of
airport capacity constraints – referred to as unaccommodated demand.
·
To
analyse the levels of congestion in both in en-route airspace and at airports.
·
To identify potential “choke-points” (airport, ACC) so as to allow more
focused lobbying for capacity improvements.
·
To
assess the way in which different demand profiles (daily and hourly flight
distribution) actually “contribute” to congestion and limit the potential for
growth.
The simulation tools comprise a
traffic augmentation algorithm (FIPS)[2]
which provides an automatic facility for constructing future operational
schedules taking into account the way demand is currently distributed (temporal
and geographic), future growth projections and local capacity constraints. One
of the strengths of FIPS is that it can quantify the growth constraining impact
of airport capacity limits. At certain airports, capacity limits may represent
a constraint to growth throughout the day (e.g. London Heathrow) but at others,
capacity may only represent a constraint at certain times of the day. This is
due in part to the perception that passengers have preferred travel times but
also due to the fact that hub and spoke operations tend to concentrate flights
into arrival and departure ‘waves’.
The second aspect of the
simulation tool is an Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) process which
simulates the operations of the CFMU, allocating delay to flights as a means of
protecting capacity constrained sectors (or airports) in the ATM network.
An advantage of this architecture
is that it allows potential future demand profiles to be constructed according
to a number of different hypotheses. It is possible (should capacity
constraints necessitate) to displace flights in time (demand smoothing) to less
congested times of the day as well as to displace flights to nearby airports.
It is also possible to build scenarios
which are in line with propositions contained in the EU White Paper, these
including the use of larger aircraft or the expansion of the European High
Speed Rail network in the future, potentially allowing the replacement of some
short-haul air services in those cases where rail represents a viable
alternative. By analysing these demand profiles within the ATFM simulator it is
possible to quantify the effects of these actions on both congestion and
airport access.
EEC
note 02/11, “Medium and long
term sustainable growth in air transport” has recently been
published highlighting a number of performance predictions at the 2015 time
horizon based on the model architecture described above. The main conclusions
of this report are that:
·
Increases in
congestion in both en-route airspace and airports are possible with the
contribution from airports increasing considerably as compared to today.
·
Delay is sensitive
to the nature of the demand profile and notable reductions in congestion can be
achieved by scheduling flights in less constrained periods.
·
The most potent
method of reducing the levels of unaccommodated demand consists of the
increased use of “secondary” airports.
·
Both congestion
and unaccommodated demand can be reduced through regulatory measures such as
the limitation of daily flight frequencies on the most congested city pairs.
·
A number of
potential High Speed rail projects could lead to reduced levels of airport
delay if there is a concerted move toward ‘replacement’ of certain short-haul
air services by rail.
EEC
note 02/11, “Medium and long
term sustainable growth in air transport”
Network Capacity and
Demand Management Business Area