Analysis of Market-Based Demand Management Strategies for Airports and en Route Airspace

Abstract

Research programs on air traffic management and airports to date have concentrated primarily on the technologies and operating procedures that would enhance system capacity, while maintaining the requisite exceptionally high level of safety. Similarly, policymakers in Europe and elsewhere have emphasized investments into technologies and infrastructure for the purpose of increasing capacity and reducing air traffic congestion. However, the gap between unconstrained demand and available capacity is likely to continue to grow in the foreseeable future, possibly leading to unacceptable levels of service and occasional gridlock, similar to what is being routinely experienced in automobile traffic today. Both policymakers and researchers have mostly shied away from investigating in-depth and adopting market-based “demand management” strategies, i.e., economic measures and incentives aimed at (a) limiting in some way the demand for access to busy airfields or to congested airspace and/or (b) modifying the spatial and temporal distribution of this demand to bring it closer to available capacity.

This chapter describes briefly some of the methodology that can be used to analyze quantitatively related technical issues. It also provides, through the analysis of two examples, a demonstration of parts of the overall approach to be followed and offers a “proof of concept”, i.e., an indication of the types of benefits that can be obtained through demand management measures based on the application of economic incentives. The first section concentrates on the airport environment and the second on en route operations.